


clean up on aisle 69

by ghostsnwaffles



Category: Bandom, LeATHERMØUTH, My Chemical Romance
Genre: (Past) Gerard Way/Bert McCracken, Alternate Universe, Anal Sex, Awkward Flirting, Blow Jobs, Gerard works at a hardware store. Frank is a construction worker. It's as cheesy as it sounds., M/M, Masturbation, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Slow Burn, hardware store au, most explicit tags won't apply until later chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:08:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 31,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26967211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostsnwaffles/pseuds/ghostsnwaffles
Summary: The guy smiles, all teeth, a little sleazy and fucking irresistible. Gerard feels himself blush.“I’m just saying,” the guy says, coming up to lean against the counter. Gerard tenses. “You clearly won the wet t-shirt contest today. I don’t wanna make you work if you’re still basking in it.”
Relationships: Frank Iero/Gerard Way
Comments: 126
Kudos: 147





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. this work is 18+, please do not read it if you are under that age. also, please do not share this where the people featured in it could see it. respect the fourth wall. 
> 
> 2\. this is all because hazel, as a joke, said in the discord "Y'all about to start writing hardware store employee Gerard and construction worker Frank fics I'm calling it now and I'm right" and i took it and RAN with it. also shoutout to all of the bcs crew for brainworming this with me
> 
> 3\. quick shout out to 'that was easy' aka the staples fic which made me believe in WIPs again. i promise to do my very best to update this on some kind of normal person schedule.
> 
> 4\. this is a fictional work. please leave workers alone in real life. do not flirt with them.

**Possibly A Tuesday - November ?**

Gerard makes his way up the basement stairs, dead set on the cup of coffee that’s five minutes and ten feet away from him. It’s going on noon - which is nobody’s definition of early - but he lost track of time while drawing last night, and didn’t fall asleep until sometime after six in the morning. He’s distantly aware he should shower soon, and that there are several letters sitting downstairs on his desk that he’s been ignoring for the past week - but coffee comes first. 

Mikey is sitting at the kitchen table, his own cup of coffee in front of him. In an unprecedented miracle, he didn’t take the last cup, which means Gerard doesn’t even need to brew a new batch. 

They sit quietly, drinking their coffee and staring off into space, until eventually Mikey looks at Gerard in the way that means he wants to say something, but doesn’t know how to say it without sounding like a dick. 

“What?” Gerard asks. It’s easier to try to make Mikey come right out and say it, especially when Gerard is under caffeinated and his penchant for guessing games is lower than usual. 

“I got you something,” Mikey says, and gets up from the table, presumably to go get whatever it is from his room. Gerard sips his coffee and tries to remember the date, because he’s almost certain it’s not a holiday, and it definitely isn’t his birthday, so there’s no reason for Mikey to have gotten him a present. 

Mikey comes back in, holding something fairly small, wrapped loosely in newspaper. 

“Here,” he says, and hands it to Gerard. 

Gerard unwraps it, letting the newspaper fall to the floor. It’s fine. He’ll get it later. 

It’s a small, leatherbound notebook. Gerard would guess it’s a sketchbook, but the front has the year embossed in a tiny, serif font on the bottom right hand corner. He flips it open. Each page is labeled with a date, and the rest of the page is blank. 

It’s a planner. Mikey bought him a planner. Why did Mikey buy him a planner? 

“Thanks,” Gerard says, because he’s not rude. A pause. “Um- why did you buy me a planner?” 

Mikey shrugs and takes a sip of his coffee. 

“I know you had trouble keeping your shifts straight when you worked at Barnes and Noble. I figure it’ll help you when someplace new finally hires you.” 

Gerard bristles a little at that. 

“How many times do I have to say-” 

“That Lisa had it out for you, and you _know_ you weren’t on the schedule that day, despite whatever she says, and it’s good that you got fired anyhow, you want to focus on your comic. I know. You really don’t need to say it again.” 

Mikey is overexaggerating. He hasn’t complained about getting fired that much. 

“Listen,” Mikey says, “I’m not saying unemployment isn’t good for you-” 

“Fuck you,” Gerard says, easy and without sting. 

“Whatever - my point is, you know you’re gonna need a job sometime soon, and I saw this when I was out the other day and figured it might help you. At the very least, if your next manager tries to screw you over in the same way, at least you have some kind of proof.” 

Gerard can admit Mikey has a point. Maybe not out loud, but he can admit it to himself. 

“Thanks Mikes,” he says, more genuine this time. Mikey nods. 

“It’s not a big deal.” 

Two cups of coffee, three cigarettes, some idle chit chat, and another silence later, Gerard flips open the planner again, sighs, and then speaks. 

“Bert offered to get me a job at the hardware store he works at.” 

He chances a glance at Mikey, who is looking at him, his face unreadable. 

“Yeah?” Mikey says. “Have you guys been talking?” 

Gerard shakes his head. 

“Nah, not even. I ran into him at Dunkin last week. Asked him what he was up to, told him about Barnes and Noble. He says it’s an easy gig, and that it pays over minimum wage,” Gerard says. Mikey’s face relaxes, almost imperceptibly. 

“Oh, good. Well, as long as you wouldn’t have to like, build shit or whatever,” Mikey takes a final swig from his mug. “How’s he been?” 

“Good, I think. He looks good. He said he’s been going to meetings down in Newark.” 

The tension Mikey’s been holding in his shoulders dissipates. He smiles. 

“Yeah, give him a call. The student loan office was _not_ happy the last time I pretended you weren’t home.” 

Gerard grimaces. 

“Good point. Yeah. Maybe I’ll do that later.” 

**Monday, March 31st**

_work: 7am - 4pm._

_need more fineliners!!!_

The world woke up today and decided to play a round of early April Fools Day pranks on Gerard. That is the only logical explanation for his shitshow of a morning. 

It’s been storming off and on for the last week, and last night the rain was bad enough that it knocked out the power. That’s not a life or death mishap, sure, but it reset Gerard’s alarm clock, meaning it didn’t go off, and he only woke up because Mikey got up and saw none of the coffee had been taken, and knew that meant Gerard had never gotten up. 

So Gerard ran (half-heartedly speed walked, honestly) to work in the pouring rain, no coffee, no breakfast, half awake and decidedly miserable.

Brian - his manager - thankfully didn’t give him shit for it, not after he saw Gerard walk in the store at 7:10 looking like a half drowned puppy. That really sums up what Gerard likes about working at the hardware store. Brian treats them all like human beings who are subject to the unfortunate mishaps of being a person. 

When he was still at Barnes and Noble, all of the managers had this attitude that the sheer desire to work for the company should allow their employees to power through any-and-everything - whether that was traffic there was no way to control, or a god damned death in the family. It had been awful. 

Gerard really owes Bert for hooking him up with this job. It’s the only one he’s ever had that doesn’t make him want to start screaming and run out of the building as soon as he clocks in. 

General gratitude aside, though, today already sucks, and Gerard is not above wallowing. 

He’s sitting behind the counter - that’s another magical thing about this job, he gets to _sit down_ , holy shit - and glaring at the rain outside through the window. His t-shirt is still sticking miserably to him, and water drips from his hair and down his back every once in a while. It keeps sending these uncomfortable shivers up his spine, and he wishes he’d thought earlier to keep a spare change of clothes in his locker. He should write that down in his planner - otherwise he’ll never remember. 

A half hour ticks by, the rain eases up back to a constant drizzle, and barely anybody comes in. Brian wanders out from the back sometime before 8:00. 

“One of the guys from the Altura site down the road should be over in a little while to do a pick up,” Brian tells him, placing a package down on the counter behind Gerard. Gerard cocks his head to the side. 

“They’re working in this weather? Jesus,” he says. He thought having to walk to work in this weather was bad enough. But having to actually work _in it_? No fucking thank you. 

“Most of ‘em only tend to call it off if it’s thundering,” Brian tells him. “Poor bastards. I gotta go try and make sense of the QuickBooks. If you need anything, Patrick is over in painting. Only come get me if the store is on fire and you forget how to use the fire extinguisher again.” 

Gerard rolls his eyes. It was one time. 

“Good luck, Bri,” he says, and looks back out the window - maybe he can summon customers in with his mind. At least he’ll have something to do. 

After Gerard accepts he has no latent mind-control powers, he digs out his sketchbook from his backpack, and gets lost in doodling an old woman and her dog who spent a while standing outside the window. The woman and the dog look remarkably similar to one another. Almost comically so. That observation launches him into a thought tangent, and soon enough he has a whole page of faces and dogs that resemble each other in some manner or another. 

There’s a rumbling outside, the cut-off of an engine, and then the noise of the bell attached to the front door of the store. Gerard looks up. 

A guy - who has to be somewhere around Gerard’s age - is standing in front of the counter. He’s in typical construction gear; jeans, boots, and a t-shirt. The only thing that deviates from the non-uniform Gerard usually sees is that this guy is wearing a Misfits zip-up hoodie, and has more tattoos than normal. That, and he’s prettier than anybody Gerard has even seen. Dark, short cropped hair, big eyes, and a funny moustache and beard combo that shouldn’t work, but does. 

Gerard blinks. 

“Uh,” He says, and then barely refrains from hitting himself in the face. This is why he needs coffee before he goes to work. The guy is just staring at him, half a smile on his face. “Can I help you?” There. That’s better. That’s how actual human beings speak. 

The guy cocks an eyebrow at him. 

“Do you wanna go get somebody else? I don’t wanna make you work while you’re enjoying your victory,” the guy says. 

Huh? 

“I’m- nobody else is available uh,” Gerard has no idea what to say. Is this a joke he doesn’t get? “Sorry, what?” 

The guy smiles, all teeth, a little sleazy and fucking irresistible. Gerard feels himself blush. 

“I’m just saying,” the guy says, coming up to lean against the counter. Gerard tenses. “You clearly won the wet t-shirt contest today. I don’t wanna make you work if you’re still basking in it.” 

Ah. 

Gerard scoots his stool slightly away from the counter.

He gets this sometimes, from some of the construction guys who come in. He thinks it’s a fucked up evolution of the shitty, homophobic comments guys would throw at him in high school. Back then, it was Brandon-From-Math-Class cornering Gerard in the hallway to ask if he really blows people for five bucks in the locker room. Now, it’s these random dudes with some kind of masculinity complex flirting with him as some kind of fucked up joke, waiting for him to fall for it so they can freak out on him. 

It got old after the first month here, and Gerard isn’t in the fucking mood, no matter how pretty this guy is. 

“Hilarious,” he says to the guy. His tone makes it very clear that it is not hilarious. “What can I help you with?” 

The guy’s smile falters, and he takes a step back. 

“I’m here for the Altura pick up,” he explains. 

Gerard nods and grabs the box off of the counter behind him. He scans the label on the box, taps a few keys, and waits for the slip to print. 

“I’m just going to need you to sign for it,” Gerard says, staring at the computer screen so he doesn’t have to look at the guy. 

“Alright,” the guy says. He’s quiet for a moment, and there’s only the sound of the ancient receipt printer struggling to do its job. Then, “you want my number while I’m at it?” 

Gerard looks directly at the guy. 

“I don’t get paid enough to even pretend I want your number.” 

The guy frowns, looking a little hurt. Good. Maybe he’ll learn his lesson. 

The printer finally forks over the receipt, and Gerard slides it and a pen over to the guy. Behind him, Gerard hears the door to the back office creak open, and approaching footsteps. 

“Gerard, did-” Brian’s voice comes, “Oh! Hey Frank. They have you doing pick ups now? Or are you just here to bother my employee?” 

Gerard glances behind him, and Brian is smiling at this douchebag. Great. 

Frank smiles back at Brian, and signs his name on the slip, sliding it toward Gerard again. 

“Just for now, I think. Geoff’s off for a little while - family thing. I told ‘em I could take over. I come this way anyhow.” He shrugs. “Not that it isn’t fun to come in here and bother you guys. Is this guy new?” He asks, gesturing toward Gerard. 

A spark of irritation runs up Gerard’s spine. So the guy can say weird shit to him, but can’t ask him a regular question directly? Typical. 

“You been here, what? Four months, Gerard?” Brian asks him. 

“Something like that,” Gerard agrees, focusing extra hard on the receipt he’s been handed. 

“Well I like him,” Frank says, “He’s feisty. I gotta run. See you guys later.” 

Gerard looks up just in time to catch the wink Frank throws his way, and then he’s out the door, the bell jingling behind him. He rolls his eyes so hard at Frank’s retreating figure he’s surprised he doesn’t strain something. He turns toward Brian. 

“Did you need something?” He asks. Brian shakes his head. 

“No I just wanted to make sure somebody came for the pickup, but then Frank was here doing just that.” 

Gerard nods. 

“Is he in here a lot? I haven’t seen him before.” Please say no. Please say no. Please say n-

“He will be now.” Brian says. “He works on the Altura site, and if he’s taking over for Geoff, he’ll be in here pretty frequently. Geoff’s their supply guy. You’d probably recognize him if I pointed him out to you.” 

Fuck. Gerard makes a vague noise, and nods. 

“I gotta go back to fighting with the Quickbooks, now that that’s done,” Brian says.

“Don’t lose,” Gerard says, and watches as Brian laughs, and turns back into his office, shutting the door behind him. 

Gerard better catch a fucking break from the universe tomorrow. First, the fiasco that was getting to work this morning, and now this. He can deal with random men he’ll never have to see again annoying him at work - he usually just tells them in a thinly veiled manner to fuck off, and that’s that. But if - fuck, what’s his name? Gerard glances at the receipt he’s still holding for some reason - if _Frank_ is going to be in here all the time, he doesn’t know how long it’ll be until he tells him to fuck off for real. 

He can’t stand people who think they can be rude just because they’re hot. It’s teenage ego complex bullshit that some people never manage to grow out of, and it’s insufferable. What really pisses him off is when those people seem to think that being rude makes them hotter somehow. Gerard doesn’t care how pretty Frank is, if he’s going to act like that, Gerard wants nothing to do with him. 

Plus, he wasn’t even that hot. Certainly not hot enough to act like that. Fuck that guy. 

—

When Bert strolls into the store at 3:52, Gerard has never been more ready to clock out. Today really has it out for him, and he just wants to go home, sit in his room, ignore everything, and hope tomorrow will be better. 

After the irritation of being late this morning, and then the rude-not-that-hot guy, the day had continued to kick Gerard while he was down. An old lady had yelled at him for giving her the wrong change back, after she’d insisted on paying for her $1.82 purchase of several screws with a coupon and a 50 dollar bill, and after lunch Brian had emerged from his battle with Quickbooks a broken husk of a manager, and had begged Gerard to go do backroom inventory for him.

Inventory was usually an easy gig, but there’d been a dead rat inside one of the boxes he’d taken off of the shelf, and he’s still upset by it. 

“Hey,” Gerard says to Bert, and moves to the side to let him punch in on the computer. 

“How was today?” Bert asks, “You look like you’ve been through the fucking wringer, man.” 

“You don’t know the half of it.” 

Bert cocks his head to the side, like he’s waiting for Gerard to elaborate, and you know what? Fuck it. Gerard still has seven minutes of his shift to kill. He might as well spend it bitching to Bert. 

“I don’t even know where to start. I was late because the storm knocked my power and Mikey had to get me up, and then this dickwad who was doing the Altura pickup decided today was make-fun-of-Gerard-to-his-face day, which was loads of fucking fun,” Gerard says, distinctly aware of how bitter his voice sounds. 

“That sucks,” Bert says, making himself comfortable on the stool Gerard has now vacated. 

“Also, there was a dead rat in the back room.” 

Bert raises his eyebrows, but the corner of his mouth quirks up, like there’s a punchline Gerard is missing. 

Oh, no fucking way. 

“You motherfucker, did you _know_ there was a dead rat and not get rid of it?” Gerard is going to kill him. “I’m gonna fucking kill you.” 

Bert bursts out laughing. 

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! You know I’m fucking freaked out by dead shit. I saw it last night while closing and didn’t want to deal.” Bert doesn’t seem very sorry at all. 

“You’re such an asshole,” Gerard says, without malice. It is kind of funny. Or it would be, if it had happened to anybody other than him. 

“Aw you love me,” Bert says, beaming. “What was up with the Altura guy though? Was it Geoff? He’s usually pretty chill.” 

“Nah, it was- fuck, what was him name? Frank! It was Frank. I’ve never seen him in here before, but Brian clearly knew him.” 

Bert stares at Gerard, like he’s trying to figure something out. 

“It was Frank? I don’t know him that well, but he’s always been nice to me. Did you not have the order ready, or-“

“No it wasn’t anything like that. He was just being a weirdo. Doing that thing some of the guys do where they pretend to flirt with me or whatever,” Gerard explains. Bert blinks at him a couple times. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He asks. 

Gerard sighs and runs his hand through his hair. Shower. He has to remember to shower when he gets home. 

“You know!” He says. “That thing where they’ll fuckin like, say shitty stock porn lines as some kinda weird set up so if you fall for it, they can get all aging-homophobic-ex-jock on you?” Bert has to know what he’s talking about. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bert says. “Are you sure they aren’t just _flirting_ with you? Have any of them ever actually freaked out?”

Well-

“No, but I know what it is. It’s the same thing dudes used to do in high school, it’s just evolved slightly. I know when I’m being like, for real flirted with,” Gerard says. 

“You absolutely do not,” Bert says, in the same certain tone that he’d tell a stranger the sky was blue. 

“Fuck off, I do,” Gerard says. “Besides, even if he was flirting with me, nobody is hot enough to really pull off the sleazy thing like he seemed to think he did.” 

Bert smiles at him, slow and a little mischievous. 

“Oh, so you do think he’s hot though?”

Gerard flaps his hands at Bert, annoyed. He glances at the clock. 3:59. He can finally fucking clock out and end this day. And this conversation. 

“Move, I’m leaving,” Gerard says, inputting his ID number into the computer. “And that’s so not the point. It doesn’t matter if he’s hot - and he wasn’t that hot - it matters that nobody is hot enough to pull that stupid persona off.” 

“Whatever you say,” Bert singsongs at him. Whatever. Gerard is clocked out. Gerard doesn’t need to finish this conversation. Gerard is just going to go the fuck home. 

“Oh get fucked,” Gerard says, just as an ancient looking old woman enters the store, and stares at him, scandalized. 

He is so done with this day. 

“I’m outta here. Have fun,” Gerard tells Bert, hoping the exact opposite. Well, not really, but it’s cathartic to pretend to be spiteful sometimes. 

Gerard grabs his coat from his locker, puts on his backpack, says goodbye to Brian, and heads out into the drizzle. 

If he walks quick enough, he can catch the 4:05 bus, and be home by 4:30, where he won’t have to think about work, or hot men, or Bert’s dumb opinions, for at least 16 hours. That sounds fucking blissful. 

  
  


**Thursday, April 3rd**

_work: 12pm - 8pm_

_laundry!!!_ _do ur fuckin laundry_ _!!!_

Gerard is caught in the dead zone of his shift. He’s halfway done with today, but that means he still has another whole half to survive. Today hasn’t been particularly bad, but it’s that specific kind of early April freezing outside, and it’d been so hard to get up this morning, and he’s spent the whole day fantasizing about getting back into bed.

Hayley is pacing behind the counter in the Paint Department - that is, the back corner of the relatively small store - and Gerard is enjoying watching her glance from her watch, to the wall clock, to the door every minute and a half. 

“Patrick is never late, what the fuck,” Hayley complains, for the fifth time in the last three minutes. It’s 4:07pm, and she has made it clear to Gerard, Brian, and God himself that she wants to go home. 

Gerard gets it. 

“He’s probably just trying to find parking. You know Main Street fills up around this time. You mention it often enough,” Gerard says. He has his sketchbook out, and he’s trying to capture Hayley’s erratic pacing, but something is off. He’s not sure what. 

Hayley deflates, all at once, and leans against one of the paint can displays. Gerard puts down his pencil. He can work on it later. 

“You’re right. I just told Lindsey that I'd pick her up when her train got in, and I don’t wanna be late.” 

Gerard tries to fight off a smile. Hayley sees it anyhow. 

“Be quiet,” she says. Gerard smiles. 

“I just think you guys have a sweet friendship,” Gerard placates. 

“That’s not what you think at all and I know it.”

Gerard holds his hands up in mock surrender. He’ll get it out of her eventually. 

“Alright, whatever, I yield. Also, if Patrick isn’t here soon I’m sure Brian will let you go anyhow,” He tells her. 

“Yeah I know,” Hayley says, leaning against the counter, “I just don’t wanna leave him understaffed. I’d feel bad.” 

“Yeah, because it’s _so_ busy in here right now.” 

The door opens, and the sound of bells follows directly after. 

“Jesus,” Gerard says, “I’ll learn my lesson someday.” He abandons his sketchbook on Hayley’s counter, and heads up front to see who it is. He’s fairly certain it isn’t Patrick, he usually announces his presence in some way or another. 

It’s not Patrick. Of course it’s not Patrick. It’s Frank. 

Gerard curses silently. Brian had said the other day that Frank would be in here pretty often, but on Tuesday a different guy from the Altura site had done the pick up, and yesterday nobody had come at all. Gerard has been hoping that something changed, and Frank wouldn’t be coming in - but Gerard has never had luck like that. 

He’s only had one interaction with the guy, sure, but something about him got under his skin. He hasn’t been able to shake off the thirty second back and forth they had. Frank pisses him off. 

Frank hears him coming up the aisle, and smiles when he sees Gerard. Gerard has to restrain himself from rolling his eyes. 

He takes him time before addressing Frank, just to be contrary. He walks the long way around the counter, readjusts the stool before sitting on it, types in his employee ID and brings up the POS, and _then_ turns toward Frank again. 

“We don’t have a pick up for you. Is there something else I can help you with?” Gerard does his best to keep his voice almost hilariously monotone. He’s not giving Frank a reaction if he can help it. 

Frank rakes his eyes over Gerard, slow and deliberate. 

“Well, if you’re offering,” Frank says, and laughs, like he thinks he's a comedy genius. “But no, I just need batteries.” 

“Aisle 12,” Gerard says, and then turns toward the computer screen. 

If this motherfucker thinks he can come in and bother Gerard for fun, Gerard is going to make him work for it. He’s not a fifteen year old kid who freaks out everytime a guy so much as looks at him anymore. And he’s not going to revert back to that just because some short guy has some internalized bullshit he’s trying to subconsciously work out. 

Frank wanders away in search of Aisle 12, and Gerard is left alone up front. He knows they have batteries in stock, but he finds himself hoping somebody came in this morning before his shift and purchased their entire stock, just to inconvenience Frank. 

In his mind it’s a confused millionaire - top hat, monocle, and moustache - who has never had to do anything for himself in his entire life. Through a series of wacky but family friendly circumstances, he ends up in Jersey, alone, and has to learn how to function as an adult in order to get home. He comes into the store after his car, which is probably some old jalopy, runs out of gas. For some reason the millionaire thinks cars run on batteries, so he buys the whole stock, just in case it needs a specific kind. 

In the end, through the power of working class solidarity and love, the millionaire would donate his fortune and retire to live a simple, regular life.

It needs some work, but Gerard can see it going somewhere. He should write that down when he gets home. 

He’s pulled out of his petty reverie by Hayley walking up to the counter, a hopeful smile on her face. 

“Was that Patrick?” She asks, looking around like he’s hiding somewhere. 

“Nah, just a customer,” Gerard says. Customer is a kind term. Nuisance would be better. Or pest, or bother, or pla-

“Damn,” she says. “Oh, also, you left this back in Paint,” She puts his sketchbook down in front of him. 

“Fuck, thanks,” Gerard says, and then frowns when he sees Frank emerge from the aisles. 

Frank waits behind Hayley, shifting his weight like he’s not sure if she’s in line or not. Gerard doesn’t acknowledge him. 

“Have you tried texting Patrick?” He asks Hayley. 

She nods. 

“Yeah, he hasn’t responded. He’s probably stuck in traffic. But if-” she glances over her shoulder, and spots Frank. “Oh! I’m not in line, sorry,” she says, moving behind the counter. 

“No problem,” Frank says, smiling, and Gerard is suddenly faced with a shitty dilemma. 

If Frank says some kind of gross shit to Hayley, Gerard is going to need to step in, like, morally. Frank could probably kick Gerard’s ass, despite the fact that Gerard is a couple inches taller than him. Frank looks pretty broad in the shoulders, and his arms are- no, that’s not the point.

If Frank says something gross to Hayley, Gerard is going to need to step in, and while Gerard isn’t the fighting sort, Frank could be, and Gerard didn’t come to work prepared to get punched in the face today. But he’s not gonna let a gross construction dude say inappropriate shit to his only female coworker, even if Hayley would be pissed off if he did tell Frank to fuck off for her. It’s still- 

“I like your hair,” Frank says to Hayley, a polite smile on his face. Gerard’s stomach twists. “I could never get mine that bright when I dyed it. It’s cool.” 

Huh. 

“Thanks!” Hayley says, smiling back at him. “The trick is to only wash it in cold water. It keeps it more vibrant.” 

Frank nods, like he hadn’t thought of that before. 

And that … isn’t where Gerard was expecting that line to go. He’s confused now. 

The door opens, the bell rings, and all three of them turn their heads. 

“Patrick!” Hayley says, sounding relieved. “ _Finally._ ” 

“Hey! Sorry I’m late. The light at Main and Chestnut is down. I was stuck on red for like fifteen minutes.” Patrick explains, looking sheepish. 

“It’s whatever, you’re here now! Come on, go clock in so I can leave,” Hayley says, and practically drags Patrick back towards Paint. 

Gerard inhales, deep, and turns toward Frank. Might as well get this over with. 

“Is that all?” He asks, motioning toward the pack of batteries Frank is holding. Frank nods, and steps closer so he can put the batteries down on the counter. 

Gerard scans it in, staring firmly at the computer. 

“That’ll be $7.94,” Gerard tells him. “Cash or card?” 

“Card,” Frank says, taking his wallet out of his pocket. 

Gerard takes the card from it, swipes it into the computer, and is almost in the home stretch of this painful interaction when the card slips out of his hand. It’s almost like it falls in slow motion - hitting the leg of his stool, the ground, and the sliding underneath the counter. 

“Oh come on,” Gerard says to nobody in particular. He looks back up at Frank, who has an eyebrow raised and a small, annoying smile on his face. 

The printer spits out his receipt, and Gerard hands it to him. 

“Here’s your receipt, give me a minute, I just gotta dig your card out from underneath the counter.” 

Gerard pauses briefly - it’d probably be easier to go around in front of the counter to get it, since the opening underneath is larger on that side, but he’s staying as far away from Frank as possible. There’s no real point in trying to preserve his dignity here, but he’s nothing if not stubborn. 

He steps off the stool, and drops down onto his knees. It’s dusty as fuck underneath the counter - he should clean under here the next time he’s bored to tears - and pretty dark, but he can see where Frank’s card slid to the far side of the counter, where it abuts the wall. He sighs, moves the stool over, and reaches. It’s just ever so slightly out of reach. 

Nothing is ever easy. 

He sits up, and motions to the pen sitting on the counter. 

“Hand me that, will you?” He asks Frank, who complies immediately. 

Gerard leans back underneath the counter, and manages to slide the card along the floor with the pen until it’s within his actual reach. He grabs it, sits up again, and looks up at Frank. 

“Sorry,” he says, not thinking. 

Frank is leaning with his elbows against the counter, looking at him. His face is a little too close for comfort. Gerard focuses on the space between his eyebrows, instead of making eye contact. 

“Wasn’t on purpose,” Frank shrugs, and smiles, just like he did the last time he was in the store. “Besides, not like it’s a bad view.” He nods his head toward Gerard on the floor, on his knees- oh fuck this guy. 

Gerard feels his face heat up, and he glares at Frank. He stands up quickly, and hands the card back to Frank. 

“Here,” he says, hoping he’s coming across as annoyed as he is. “Have a day.” He’s definitely not going to tell him to have a _nice_ day, but hopes it’ll prompt Frank to leave. 

Frank barks out a laugh, and puts the card back in his wallet. 

“Bye Gerard,” He says, still smiling, and leaves the store. 

Gerard watches Frank through the window. He walks around the row of cars parked in front of the store, and climbs into a sky blue, vintage looking pickup truck. Gerard rolls his eyes and looks away. 

\--

An hour before close, Patrick comes up to the front counter, his bag over his shoulder, ready to head out for the day. Gerard always forgets the paint department gets to leave an hour before close, and he gets fiercely jealous every time he remembers. 

“You alright, Gerard?” Patrick asks. 

Gerard shrugs. He’s been in a foul mood since Frank was in earlier, and he knows it’s visible. 

“The guy who was in here when you came in pissed me off. It’s nothing.” 

“What’d he do?” Patrick asks. 

“He- I don’t even know. He does this weird, fake flirting thing to annoy me. He did it last time he came in, too. It just bothers me.” 

Patrick laughs. 

“Are you complaining because a guy flirted with you? Twice?” 

“It’s more complicated than that! Don’t laugh, fuck you, c’mon,” Gerard says. 

“First of all, only you could make some guy flirting with you _complicated_ ,” Patrick says, “second of all, I have reserved all rights to laugh at your misfortune since that time I complained to you about suburban moms who agonize over the difference between Eggshell and Ivory White, and then you made me listen to you detail their differences for a half hour.” 

“But there really are some important differences! Like-” 

Patrick throws his hands up. 

“No! No. Absolutely not. I am off the clock, and I refuse to listen to this. Bye Gerard,” Patrick says, and then as an afterthought, yells “bye Brian!” 

Brian’s farewell floats out from the back office, and Patrick turns heel and leaves. 

Gerard closes his eyes. Only one more hour. Only one more hour. 

\--

Gerard gets home sometime after 8:30, and does what any reasonable person would do after they had a day like his: he gets directly the fuck into bed. 

His bed has been calling to him all day, and it’s paradise to strip off his uniform, and climb under his mountain of blankets in just his boxers. He has tomorrow off, and he can just lounge. 

He smokes, and channels surfs, and eventually finds the will to reheat leftovers from when his mom made lasagna on Tuesday. After that, he wastes some time trying to draw, but nothing of substance will come to him, so he gives up the ghost and gets into bed with the intent to sleep. 

As much as he hates it, he has to keep a semi-normal sleep schedule, even on his off days, or he’s a wreck the next time he has to go into work. 

But he tosses, and turns, and stares at the ceiling, and stares at the inside of his eyelids, and counts sheep, for fucks sake, but he can’t manage to drift off. 

Gerard just cannot get comfortable. 

He glances at the clock on his bedside table. 2:03am. Fuck it. 

He rearranges himself so he’s lying on his back, and reaches into his boxers, and idly gropes his dick, and thinks, yeah, he could probably jerk off right now. When all else fails, that tends to put him to sleep. 

He gets up, grabs the lube from the drawer next to his bed, turns on his clunky old laptop, and plugs in his headphones. It’s always overwhelming trying to decide what to watch, so he just selects something he has bookmarked - some amateur blowjob vid - and lets his mind wander. 

He’s half hard already, his dick clearly supportive of his decision to jerk off, and he’s stroking himself nice and slow, watching as this pretty, blond haired twink moans around a buff, dark haired guy’s dick. 

God, he hasn’t gotten laid in forever. He misses giving head, like, _misses_ it. It isn’t always pleasant on paper, but there’s something about the subversion of power when you’re blowing somebody - letting them use you to get off - that puts you totally in control. He gets off on it hard. 

He rubs his thumb over the head of his dick, and bucks up slightly. _Jesus_. 

The blond guy on the screen is sucking the other guys balls now, jacking him fast and rough, and Gerard picks up the pace himself. 

Fuck. He groans under his breath. There was this one time, back when he was in college, when he hooked up with this guy in his figure drawing class, and he’d practically put Gerard through his shitty dorm mattress. He’d been so fucking hot. All built, with these dark eyes, and he’d given him beard burn that Gerard had felt for _days_. 

He’s sweating now, thinking about it. He throws the covers off himself, and reaches down with his other hand to tug lightly at his balls. 

The video has moved on. The blond guy is getting rimmed by the dark haired guy, but he’s not touching his dick - just vocalizing with a constant, hitching whine. 

Gerard’s leaking into his hand. He twists on the upstroke, and has to muffle a moan that threatens to spill out of him. Fuck. He’s close. 

The dark haired guy is talking on screen now, telling the blond guy he has to be good if he’s going to let him cum. He grabs the blond’s dick and strokes, once. 

“Say please,” he says, and licks up his dick. The blond moans, but shakes his head. The dark haired guy laughs. 

“You’re feeling feisty tonight, huh?” He asks. 

Gerard gasps, almost silently, and is now picturing dark hair and a pretty face and broad shoulders and tattoos and ridiculous flirting. On his knees, staring up, undoing ratty jeans in the middle of the hardware store. Fuck, _fuck_ \- he starts stroking himself faster. He’d probably be rough with Gerard, grab his hair, make him take it. Call him pretty and then cum on his face. Jerk him off afterwards, bite at his neck while he did and leave marks and the faintest hint of beard burn from his stupid fucking moustache. 

Gerard flicks under the head of his dick, one, twice, and cums, hard. 

A minute or two later, after he’s gotten his breathing and his heart rate back to normal, it hits him. 

Oh no. 

  
  


**Saturday, April 5th.**

_work: 7am - 12pm_ _  
_ _LAUNDRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!_

Saturday shifts are easy enough that Gerard doesn’t mind having to wake up early on the weekend. Besides the over enthusiastic fathers who come in to buy supplies for their lawns, it stays fairly slow, and it’s usually just Gerard, Brian, and Adam - who only comes in on weekends to do inventory and restock, and occasionally man the paint counter when needs arise. 

Well, usually working with Adam is nice, but right now he’s trying to convince Gerard that the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead was better than the original, and Gerard is not having it. 

“I just don’t know how you think you can have this argument when you haven’t even seen the remake,” Adam says to him, crouched down in front of the counter, replacing the empty candy cartons on the shelving units attached to it. 

“I don’t _need_ to have seen it,” Gerard argues, “the original is a near perfect movie, and any overly showy redo of it is an affront to God.” 

“You’re so fucking pretentious,” Adam laughs. 

“Maybe! But I’m also right. All the beauty of the original is in the slow burn, in the fucking desperation. I know they didn’t keep that in the remake. So what’s the point?” 

“Isn’t it enough to wanna see some people get fucked up by zombies?”

“No!” Gerard is aware he’s reaching a level of indignation that’s almost shrill, but he feels strongly about this. 

“Just give it a watch, it’ll be worth it,” Adam says, and then, “fuck, I gotta go get more Snickers from the back.” 

“Give yourself a good, hard look in the mirror while you’re back there. Think about your choices.” 

Adam shakes his head, smiling. 

“Whatever you say.” 

Gerard knows he can convince Adam to see the light on this issue, he just has to be strategic about it. Maybe later he’ll go home and rewatch it, take notes so he has some real talking points for the next time he sees Adam. Maybe he’ll even watch the damn remake, just to really shut him up. 

Outside, there’s the rumbling sound of a truck's engine, and then silence. Gerard tenses. He still hasn’t dealt with- whatever happened on Thursday night. It was a fluke. A mishap. An unfortunate parallel drawn by his brain when he was in a vulnerable and horny moment, that’s it. But he still doesn’t want to see Frank. Not just because of what happened. Just in general. 

He is still anti-Frank. 

Door, bell, deep breath - he looks up. 

“Oh, it’s just you.” 

Mikey and Ray are standing in front of the counter, both staring at him, clearly confused. Ray seems amused, but Mikey is looking at him like he knows something is up, and Gerard does not need to deal with that right now. 

“Nice to see you too, Gerard,” Ray says, laughing. 

Gerard flaps his hand at them. 

“I thought you were- I figured it was gonna be a customer. It caught me off guard. Sorry.” 

Mikey raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t push it. 

“Anyways,” Mikey does say, “Me and Ray came in here to see if you wanted us to grab you coffee while we were downtown returning his uncles truck.” 

“Does he deserve it now though?” Ray asks. “He was kinda rude.” 

Mikey smiles. 

“You’re right,” he says to Ray. “He didn’t seem very happy to see us at all.”

Gerard pouts. 

“Oh that’s just mean.” 

“Yeah, it is,” Mikey agrees, smug. 

Gerard rolls his eyes. 

“I’m so happy to see you both. Mikey, my favorite brother, and Ray, my best friend. Please, oh please, get me a coffee,” Gerard says, deadpan. 

“I’m your only brother, dickhead.” 

“And I didn’t kill you when you were small and vulnerable, even though I could have, and that should earn me coffee privileges for life,” Gerard argues. Mikey scoffs. 

“I don’t know why you think that is ever gonna work. Why should I reward you for not murdering a child?” 

“I don’t know, Mikes, he got me,” Ray says. “I’ll get you a coffee, Gerard.” 

“And that’s why you're my best friend!” 

Gerard gives them his coffee order, and watches them leave the store and walk down the street. Adam comes back out, and they chat for a little bit, but something is bothering Gerard. Once he realized it was Mikey and Ray, and not Frank, who had come in, he should have been relieved - but there’s this small rock of a feeling rattling around in his chest, and if he didn’t know better, he would call it disappointment. 

It couldn’t be disappointment. Absolutely not. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading :D


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He looks - different, in regular clothes. Less like an irritating side character in the bad comedy that is his life, and more like just some guy. It’s a cool shirt, at least. 
> 
> The tattoos that cover his arms are in full display, and Gerard thinks, as an artist, he is allowed to have an objective appreciation for art in front of him. It has no bearing on his opinion about Frank as a person. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. if you are under 18 please do not read this fic, its 18+. as always do not share this with anybody mentioned in it. 4th wall, etc etc. also, please heed the added tags, specifically the past alcoholism / alcohol abuse one. its nothing too heavy, but it is mentioned. 
> 
> 2\. im probably going to be updating sunday or mondays, because these seem to take about a week to crank out. also, this chapter is somehow even longer than the first, and i have a feeling it's only going to get worse from here. 
> 
> 3\. shoutout to lil for listening to me talk about this fic all the time, reading snippets as they get written, and fucking drawing me art of this frank and gerard <3
> 
> 4\. eternal shout out to bcs for birthing this brainworm with me. 
> 
> 5\. if ur in america and can vote please vote lol

The Frank Problem has only persisted, and Gerard is starting to accept that he’s fighting a losing battle, here. For one thing, Brian hadn’t been exaggerating when he said Frank would be in a lot. Frank has come in practically everyday over the last two weeks. Even when Frank doesn’t have to do a pick up for work, he seems to find some reason to come into the store. It’s constant. 

Gerard would be weirded out by it, _wishes_ he had a reason to be weirded out by it - but Frank always seems to legitimately need something. Which makes sense, he supposes, since Gerard works at a hardware store, and Frank works on a construction site - but still. 

And then, there’s the fucking flirting. It isn’t always over the top or ridiculous as it had been in the beginning, Sometimes it’s just a small, pointed comment, or a filthy smile directed Gerard’s way, like they’re in on an R rated joke together - but Gerard didn’t catch either setup or the punchline. 

It would be different, Gerard thinks, if Frank flirted with everyone. Some people are like that. Bert, Mikey, and Adam are all like that - hell, Gerard used to be like that, to a certain extent. But Frank only ever turns on his idea of ‘charm’ for Gerard. Every time Gerard has seen Frank interact with another person, Frank has been polite, kind - if a little goofy. 

The only conclusion Gerard can come to is that he should buckle down and ignore it, the best he can. He doesn’t know why Frank has chosen him to specifically bother, but if he doesn’t encourage it, maybe it will just stop. 

That didn’t work in high school, and it’s probably not going to work now, but it’s the best option Gerard has, at the moment. 

**Sunday, April 20th** **  
** _work: 12pm - 8pm_ _  
_ _lol 420 blaze it_

Gerard hates the spring. 

First of all, there’s his birthday - which always manages to send him into a small existential crisis, as if it hasn’t been an annual constant his whole 27 years of being. It feels stupid, that he hasn’t been able to get used to aging yet. It throws him for a loop every year. 

Not that he didn’t have a nice birthday - he’d come home from work, and his mom had baked him a cake - his parents had bought him art supplies, and Mikey had gotten them both tickets to a Bright Eyes gig in a couple of months. It’d been a good night. 

Besides his birthday, though, there’s the pollen, and with it the reminder that Gerard is allergic to the literal planet he lives on. Two months of sneezing fits and migraines isn’t Gerard’s idea of a good time, what can he say? 

But mostly what Gerard hates about spring is the way the temperature fluctuates. Most days it stays cool and rainy - April showers bring May flowers, and the Mayflower brought colonizers, or however the rhyme goes - but some days, like today, are an evil tease of a summer that’s still so far out of reach. 

It’s a bit under 80 degrees - which is _alarming_ for April, and a fun reminder that climate change is likely going to kill everybody Gerard loves - and the air conditioner inside the store is not working. Really not working. Like, Gerard is very fucking thankful he showered last night and remembered to put deodorant on this morning, not working. 

It doesn’t help that the wall of windows at the front of the store faces west, and the sunlight is streaming inside, overwhelming and early-spring distant all the same. Bert is shuffling around up front, pretending to do whatever his job is, and chatting at Gerard, but Gerard isn’t listening - he’s just doing his best to not dissolve into a puddle of sweat.

“You know,” Bert says, coming up to lean on the counter and snapping Gerard out of his temperature-induced haze, “I feel like you never _listen_ to me anymore.” He’s joking, smiling up at Gerard. 

Gerard reaches over the counter, and cups Bert’s cheek, stares into his eyes for a quiet moment. 

“You’re right, I don’t,” he says. “Do you want to know why?”

Bert flutters his eyelashes at him. “Please, tell me,” he says. 

“It’s because,” Gerard pauses, chokes a little, trying not to laugh. “It’s because I don’t want to.” 

Bert gasps. 

“I always knew you were going to break my heart.” Bert is almost convincingly bereft. 

There’s the sound of footsteps behind Gerard, and Bert is staring over Gerard’s shoulder, clearly trying his best not to laugh. 

“I would appreciate it,” Brian’s voice starts, “if you didn’t canoodle at work.” 

Gerard bites his lip, hard - he doesn’t want to break, but he sneaks a peek at Bert’s face, who just looks so amused, and he can’t take it. He lets out a laugh that’s borderline a wheeze, and turns around to look at Brian. 

“Did you just say _canoodle_?” He asks, still trying to catch his breath. 

Brian is standing in the doorway to the back office, looking equal parts sweaty, confused, and alarmed. 

“Canoodle, snuggle, work out your relationship issues - whatever you wanna call it. Do it in your own free time, please,” Brian says, with grave sincerity. 

Bert doubles over laughing, and Gerard is still looking at Brian, not sure if he’s entertained or bewildered by this revelation. 

“Sorry, Brian, do you actually think me and Bert are together?” He asks. He has to know the answer to this. This is comedy gold. 

“I-” Brian starts, looking between them, even more confused now. “I’ve literally heard you two talk about having sex! With each other! I’ve had to tell you to stop talking about having sex with each other. How is that weird jump to have made?”

Bert is laughing so hard that Gerard is concerned for his health. 

“Jesus, Bert, put your hands on your head or something. Breathe.” Gerard says. He turns back towards Brian. “So just to be clear - for the last four months I have worked here you have been operating on the assumption that me and Bert are dating?” 

Brian nods. 

“Wait-” Bert says, finally catching his breath, “so I recommended a random guy with no relevant experience for this job, you let me convince you to hire him, and this whole time you thought you were doing me a solid by hooking my boyfriend up with a job?” 

“I mean, I would have hired Gerard anyhow, he did well at the interview.” Brian sounds a little sheepish. 

That starts Bert back up laughing, Gerard following this time. 

“Why is that so funny?” Brian demands. 

Gerard is crying, actually crying. Some of it might be sweat, it really is so fucking hot in the store right now, he’s a little delirious with it - but he’s definitely cry-laughing too. 

“Sorry, Brian. It’s just - me and Bert used to hook up when I was in college. We never dated. We certainly aren’t dating now,” Gerard explains. 

“Yeah,” Bert adds, more of a wheeze than a word. “Six years of collective sobriety and two metaphorical lifetimes ago. Neither of us is taking up with the talent, don’t worry.” 

“Then why-” Brian cuts himself off, still deeply confused. “You’re both so weird.” He shakes his head. 

Bert props his elbows up on the counter, and rests his hands in his head. 

“Have you ever had friends, Brian? It’s kind of like that,” Bert is smiling, thrilled by this new information. 

Brian wipes a hand over his face. 

“Go do your fucking job McCracken,” He says. “It’s too hot in here for this. Just- do your jobs and don’t _platonically_ grope each other, or whatever the fuck it is you guys do.” 

Brian turns heel and shuts the door to his office behind him, not quickly, but with firm and clear intent. Like the door can protect him from whatever the fuck is going on outside it. 

Poor Brian, Gerard thinks, they really do put him through the wringer sometimes. 

“I’m taking my lunch,” Bert tells him. That tracks. 

“Get me a Diet Coke on your way back, yeah? I’m dying in here.” 

Bert nods, and heads out the front door, bells tinkling behind him. 

Gerard looks around the empty store, and entertains going back into Paint to restart his argument with Adam about the Dawn of the Dead remake. He did end up watching it, and it absolutely did not hold up to the original. But the other two times he’s tried to restart the argument, Adam hadn’t seemed to care about his meticulously thought out comparison of the two. 

He still hasn’t cleaned out underneath the counter though, and the longer he puts that off, the worse it’s going to get. But he needs some god damned air in this store if he’s going to do that. 

Gerard props the door open, raids the supply closet for a duster, and sets about unearthing who-knows how many years of dust from underneath the front counter. 

The breeze coming in from outside kicks up the dust while Gerard attempts to clean, and he has to take a break every couple of minutes to violently sneeze several times in a row. 

He fucking hates dust. And the spring. And the heat. 

He’s practically pressed to the floor, arm stuck far underneath the counter, trying to swipe at the dust where it’s collected along the far edge of the wall, when a polite cough comes from up above him. He starts, bumping his head on the edge of the counter, and swears. 

“Sorry, just a minute,” He says, extracting himself from his tangled position. 

He stands up, wiping at his pants in a sad attempt to get the dust off, and looks up. 

It’s Frank. 

“Oh,” He says. God damn it. 

“Spring cleaning?” Frank asks. 

Gerard shrugs, but doesn’t answer. Frank is looking at his face with an uncomfortable intensity. 

“You have, uh-” Frank tells him, motioning at his own face. 

Fuck. Of course he does. Gerard wipes a hand over his face. 

“Is it gone?” 

“No, it’s-” Frank says, and then he’s reaching over the counter and gently plucking a piece of dust off of Gerard’s eyebrow, and blows it off his finger like he’s making a wish on a Dandelion that’s gone to seed. “There!” 

Gerard smiles, despite himself, and then quickly tries to rearrange his face back to neutral. He clears his throat. 

“Can I help you?” He asks, voice level. 

There’s a flash of something across Frank’s face - confusion, disappointment, maybe. It’s gone too quickly to name. It doesn’t matter anyhow. 

“Yeah,” he says, it comes out a little gruff. “Uh - you guys sell contact paper?”

Gerard nods. “Right over there,” he says, pointing to the display across the room from the counter. 

“Ah.” Frank walks away to go sort through it. 

Gerard tries not to stare. He doesn’t want to stare at Frank. But the store is empty, and still unbearably warm even with the breeze, and Frank isn’t wearing his usual central casting construction worker outfit today. He’s got on Doc Martens instead of Timbs, close fitting jeans with rips in the knee, and a tight, well worn t-shirt that Gerard thinks might be old-school Strung Out merch. 

He looks - different, in regular clothes. Less like an irritating side character in the bad comedy that is his life, and more like just some guy. It’s a cool shirt, at least. 

The tattoos that cover his arms are in full display, and Gerard thinks, as an artist, he is allowed to have an objective appreciation for art in front of him. It has no bearing on his opinion about Frank as a person. 

But then Frank is bending over, trying to get a closer look at some of the contact paper on the bottom shelf, his shirt riding up, and Gerard gets a glimpse of tattooed guns, crossed over the bottom of his back. 

Gerard almost chokes on his spit. _Jesus_. He tries to pull his eyes away, look at anything that isn’t Frank’s fucking- his fucking tramp stamp. That’s the only word for it. 

Frank shifts, his shirt riding higher, and Gerard can see that the tattoo curls forward, onto Frank’s lower stomach, and he thinks he’s forgotten how to breathe. 

A wave of heat moves through Gerard. He can’t even pretend it has anything to do with the temperature in the store. It’s sudden and certain and _wanting_. 

Frank stands up, quick, plucking one of the rolls of contact paper off the shelf with decisiveness, just as Bert strolls back into the store, lunch in one hand and a Diet Coke in the other. 

They almost bump into each other, but Bert lets Frank go first, and Frank approaches the counter to check out, while Bert comes around the other side. 

“This is all,” Frank tells Gerard, putting the roll down on the counter. 

Gerard doesn’t know what his face looks like right now, but he knows he cannot have a fucking conversation with _fucking_ Frank in this moment. He just can’t. 

“Bert,” Gerard says, turning toward him, “can you- I gotta, uh-” There must be some kind of SOS signal flashing in his eyes, because Bert takes one look at him, puts his lunch down, and nods. 

“Yeah,” He says. 

Gerard nods, mumbles a thanks, and rounds the corner and walks quickly toward the bathroom that’s near Paint. 

Behind him, Gerard can faintly hear this exchange: 

“Is he alright?” Frank asks. 

A pause. 

“Yeah,” Bert says. “Lemme ring you up.” 

Gerard pushes open the door to the bathroom, and then locks it behind him. He doesn’t turn on the lights. 

It’s one thing to accidentally jerk off about Frank. Gerard can accept that as being a thing that happened to him. He’s had way weirder thoughts cross his mind right before he came. One time he remembered he had an unused gift card to an art store sitting in his wallet, and that had been what sent him over the edge. It’s whatever. 

It is a whole different, worse, _terrible_ thing to see Frank’s god damned tramp stamp at work and have to retreat to the bathroom to fight down a boner. That’s bullshit, and he refuses to even entertain the evil, horny gremlin in the back of his mind that says he could always just get off real quick here in the bathroom and nobody would know. 

Absolutely not. 

He leans back against the door, and closes his eyes. 

It’s cooler, in the dark of the bathroom, than it was out in the main part of the store, and Gerard can faintly hear the clink of Adam stacking paint cans. He focuses on that sound, and tries to think about anything that isn’t this situation. The way his high school campus used to smell like hot garbage in the spring because it was right by a dump. The stale taste in the back of his throat when he wakes up after chain smoking all night and not brushing his teeth. The time he accidentally tore his big toenail clean off. The abrasive ripping of cheap paper when you erase it too quickly. The blur of the nurse’s face as he came to when he passed out getting blood drawn. 

Gerard is slightly nauseous now, but his boner crisis has been averted. He has a few hours left of his shift, but he’s tempted to fake sick and ask Brian to let him off early. He shouldn’t, he won’t, but all he wants is to go home and hide from the tragic fucking comedy his life has been for the past few weeks. 

It’s too much to deal with, this Frank bullshit, and Gerard thinks it’s unfair that he has to. Why couldn’t Frank have chosen Bert, or Adam, or fucking Brian to flirt with all the time? It would be funny to them. A fun source of in-store banter. 

Gerard, though, doesn’t know how to deal with it. Even if he did want to engage Frank in his bullshit flirting, he wouldn’t be able to. He has no idea how to meet him in the middle when Frank’s starting point is bad porn dialogue and ridiculous, smug levels of glee when he manages to make Gerard blush. 

That’s just not how Gerard is. 

It doesn’t matter, anyhow, because giving it back to Frank would just mean that Frank wins. Gerard isn’t even interested in playing, he’s not, but he doesn’t want to lose, either. 

It- it’s whatever. It’s whatever. Gerard has a job to get back to. That’s what matters. 

It’s likely the coast is clear and Frank-free outside the bathroom, but Gerard stays in there another minute, just to be sure. 

He breathes in, deep, unlocks the bathroom door, and heads out into the store. 

Bert is still standing at check out, eating his sandwich and chatting with Brian. Bert must hear him coming, because he looks up as Gerard rounds the corner of one of the aisles. Bert stares at him for a moment, and then his face breaks out into a shit eating grin. 

“Oh my god,” Bert says. 

“Shut the absolute fuck up,” Gerard tells him. 

“What?” Brian asks, confused, looking at Gerard like he might be bleeding and he just hasn’t spotted it yet. 

“Is it seriously that bad?” Bert asks. 

“Shut _up_.” 

“No, really, what the fuck are you two talking about?” 

“Gerard has it bad for Frank,” Bert tells Brian, grinning like he’s just been crowned the queen of England. 

“Frank? Frank who?” Brian asks. 

“I do not fucking have _anything_ for Frank,” Gerard says through gritted teeth. 

“Like Frank from Altura?” 

“That’s a lie and we both know it. Do you want me to explain to Brian how I know?” 

“Brian doesn’t want you to explain to Brian how you know,” Brian says, a tinge of anxiety in his voice. 

“I fucking hate you,” Gerard tells Bert. “Now get off my stool.” 

Bert laughs, but moves, clearing space for Gerard to sit down. 

Brian is looking at Gerard like he’s grown a second, dumber head. 

“Frank? Really?” He asks. 

Gerard buries his head in his hands. 

“Shut up,” he mumbles. 

“Are you really that surprised?” Bert asks Brian. 

Gerard looks up from his hands, and Brian is staring at Bert, considering. 

“Huh,” Brian says. “I guess not.” He turns toward Gerard. “You have shitty taste.” 

“I know,” Gerard whines, “you don’t need to remind me.” 

“Hey!” Bert complains. 

Brian laughs. 

“I hate it here,” Gerard says, putting his head back in his hands. 

Brian laughs even harder. 

“I’d be careful with that amusement there, Brian. You look in a mirror recently?” Bert asks. 

“What’re you talking about?” Brian asks. 

Gerard looks up again. He knows where this is going, and he thinks his day has been shitty enough that he’s allowed to laugh at the look that’s about to be on Brian’s face. 

“I mean,” Bert says, with a cheshire grin, “who else do you know that’s relatively short, dark haired, pierced, and has tattoos?” 

Brian is silent for a moment, and then a look that can only be described as deep, fundamental horror crosses over his face. Gerard stifles a laugh. 

“No,” he says. “No, do _not_ drag me into this.” 

“‘Fraid you’re already in it, Bri,” Bert says. He looks so fucking pleased with himself. 

“I’m going into my office. We aren’t discussing this again. Do your jobs,” Brian says, and walks quickly away. 

“You could be next!” Bert calls after him, laughing. 

Gerard feels bad, making fun of Brian like this, but at least they’re not focusing on him and Frank anymore. 

\--

An hour before close, Bert wanders up to the counter and tells Gerard that Brian wants him to clean the staff room. Gerard knows what probably happened is that Brian told _Bert_ to clean the staff room, but he’s bored enough to not question it. 

‘Staff room’ might be a generous description, if Gerard is being honest. It’s more of a storage closet with a couple of lockers, an ancient looking couch, and a microwave that only functions when the planets align. 

Gerard doesn’t think the trash in here has been taken out since he started working in December, and there’s a thin film of dust on everything except the microwave, since nobody can seem to accept that it doesn’t work. He sighs. At least it’s something to do. 

A half hour, a second sneezing fit, and some sweat later, the staff room looks good. Or, well, better, at least, than it did. It’s impossible for it to improve beyond this without a full renovation and a hazardous waste crew. Which isn’t going to happen. That means Gerard’s job is done. 

Gerard walks back out into the store. There’s thirty minutes to kill before close, and he’s ready to power through them. He wants to go home. 

Bert is standing at the register, chatting with an old woman who looks so charmed that Gerard is kind of uncomfortable intruding. But Gerard knows his presence tends to stop older women from fully propositioning Bert, and he doesn’t feel like having to listen to Bert detail exactly what somebody’s mother offered to do to him - not again. 

Gerard hops up on the stool that Bert has vacated, and tries to pay attention to anything but the conversation in front of him, and just let the cockblock vibes radiate instead. 

“Well it was _lovely_ meeting you, Kathy, I’ll be sure to speak to my manager about special ordering those planters for you. Give us a call next week, yeah?” Bert says. 

The woman - Kathy - blushes, and tells Bert to have a nice night - as if Gerard is totally invisible. Gerard has no idea how Bert does it. 

Kathy leaves, the bells jingling after her, and the door shuts. 

“I don’t know Bert,” Gerard says, smiling, “I think she might be kinda young for you.” 

“Aw baby, are you jealous? You know I’ll come back to you as soon as you ask,” Bert makes a kissy face at Gerard, getting closer, and Gerard smacks him on the shoulder. 

“My heart belongs to Brian now, you know that,” Gerard says, pitching his voice a little louder than necessary. 

“No it _doesn’t_ ,” Brian yells from the back office.

Gerard and Bert glance at each other, and both laugh. 

“I’ll count the till if you sweep,” Gerard offers, and Bert nods. 

They fall into a lull, working through closing procedures in relative quiet, until Bert speaks up. 

“Have you thought about just asking him out?” Bert asks. Gerard doesn’t need to ask who he’s talking about. 

He should have known he wasn’t gonna get away with not talking about this. 

“Absolutely not,” Gerard says, focusing on the stack of fives in front of him. 

“Why the fuck not?” 

“Because!” Gerard says. “He’s just messing with me, and I don’t even like him, like, as a person.” 

“You don’t know anything about him,” Bert says. 

“Another perfectly good reason why I shouldn’t ask him out.” 

“You’re so fucking stubborn,” Bert says. “And he isn’t fucking messing with you, I don’t know why you’re so convinced of that.” 

“Nobody genuinely flirts like that. The first thing he ever said to me was, like, ‘oh you clearly won the wet t-shirt contest’. That’s rude, and not something you say to somebody you actually think is good looking,” Gerard argues. Why can’t Bert get where he’s coming from? 

“It might be _crude_ , but it’s not rude. Plus, I think the first thing I ever said to you, after asking to bum a cig, was something along the lines of ‘hey man, I lost my keys, can I check your pants?’ Did you think I was making fun of you?” 

Silence. Gerard stares extra hard at the stack of 10s that he’s holding. 

“Oh my god, you did! So this is just an ongoing problem for you, huh?” 

“I fucking hate you,” Gerard says. 

Bert leans the broom against the counter and crosses his arms over his chest. 

“Why is it so hard for you to believe somebody might be legitimately interested in you?” 

“I-”

“No, I don’t want you to answer that. I know what your reasoning is, and it’s bullshit. I’m telling you that as an outside, objective party. You can ignore me, but I’m right, and you know it.” 

Gerard sighs. 

“Okay, yeah, whatever, thanks,” he says. 

“So you’ll at least think about asking him out?”

“Oh. No. No way. I’m just trying to get you to shut up.” 

Bert groans. 

“You’re fucking impossible. I give up. Die sad and alone without that beefy goodness, see if I care,” Bert says. 

“I will, thanks,” Gerard says, smiling at Bert, all teeth and no mirth. 

Bert throws his hands up. 

“I’m gonna go get the keys from Brian so we can lock up.” 

\--

It’s cooled down some, since the sun set, but the frigid air conditioner blasting inside the bus is a relief. Gerard stares out the window blankly, focusing on the electric whir of the overhead lights and the reflection his face makes in the window. 

He appreciates what Bert is trying to do, but Bert just doesn’t get it. In this scenario, Gerard is one of the old women that Bert charms for kicks. Frank’s motivations can’t solely be to make fun of Gerard, it’s gone on too long for that, and Gerard can admit that. 

But some people, like Bert, like Frank, just flirt with others to amuse themselves. It doesn’t mean anything. And it would be pathetic for Gerard to convince himself that it does. 

There was this one lady, Lisa, who came in a lot when Gerard first got the job. Bert flirted with her sometimes, just for fun, and she had taken it way too seriously and started showing up all the time to try and talk to Bert. By the end it had been sad and uncomfortable to witness. And that’s who Gerard will be, if he lets himself think anything past the fact that Frank is hot. He’ll be Lisa. 

And yeah, okay, Gerard can admit, in the safety of his own brain, that Frank is hot. He has eyes, and he’s both jerked off to him and gotten an awkward work boner just from seeing one of his tattoos - clearly, Gerard thinks Frank is hot. And it’s nice to be flirted with by hot people. But Gerard isn’t going to let his perpetual loneliness and penchant for dark haired dudes with tattoos trick him into thinking there’s something there when there’s not. He’s not that stupid, or naive. 

As long as he keeps his feelings in check and doesn’t get any more awkward work boners, he’ll be fine. 

**Monday, April 21st** **  
** _work: 7am - 2pm  
_ _movie with mikey & ray tn??? _

Step one, Gerard decides on the bus the next morning, is to just be fucking normal about this. Okay, Frank flirts with him for fun. Okay, Gerard enjoys it. It can just be that. Gerard can allow it to just be that. (Step two is to never get a boner at work again, Frank related or otherwise, but he has less immediate control over that one, so he isn’t as focused on it.) 

The first hour of work is routine enough: opening procedures, helping several older couples who are far too chipper considering how early it is, and leaving Brian upfront so Gerard can go grab coffee for them both down the street. 

It starts to go south when Gerard strolls back into the store, a coffee in each hand, and sees Brian placing a large box behind the counter, on top of several other large boxes. 

“That the order?” Gerard asks. 

Brian grunts an affirmative, and reaches out. Gerard hands him his coffee. Brian takes a big gulp, and then places the coffee down on the counter. 

“I gotta talk to the Altura site manager about getting the larger orders shipped directly to them. I can’t handle the UPS dudes getting pissy with me about the store not having a loading dock.” 

Gerard sympathizes. The UPS dudes kind of suck. 

After he finishes bringing out the order, Brian escapes into the back office with his coffee, supposedly to go do whatever it is he does that keeps the store running. But Gerard knows he’s just going to drink his coffee and play solitaire. Which is fair enough, since Gerard is going to drink his coffee and sketch until somebody comes in and he needs to do his actual job. 

A cup of coffee, two sketchbook pages, and a smoke break later, Frank’s truck rumbles up in front of the store. 

Gerard hears it coming before he looks outside to confirm. Once he sees the truck, he glues his eyes back to his sketchbook page, and reminds himself that he is going to be normal about this. He is absolutely capable of being normal about this. 

Door, bell, footsteps- 

“Hi,” Frank says, and Gerard looks up, and swallows. 

Frank hasn’t shaved in a couple of days, and is sporting more of a beard than he usually does. He’s lightly sunburned across the high points of his face, and wearing his usual tank top and jeans combo. 

He looks good. 

“Hey, uh - hi.” Alright, not a great start on the normalcy front, Gerard can admit that. He motions to the stack of boxes to his right. “Pick up is right over there,” He tells Frank. 

Frank looks at the stack of boxes. 

“Shit, I don’t remember becoming a UPS driver,” he says, looking down at himself. “At least I’m not wearing the outfit, I’m not really into the brown onesie look, if I’m being honest.”

Gerard laughs, and Frank’s eyes flick back over to him as he does, a slow smile making its way across his face. Gerard holds the eye contact for a second, and, wow, Frank has really long eyelashes. How did Gerard not notice that before? 

He looks away. Normal, he tells himself, normal. 

“You should hear what the actual UPS guys have to say about it,” Gerard says. “Brian’s gonna call your site manager about not getting the big orders shipped here anymore.” 

“ _I’m_ gonna call my site manager about not getting the big orders shipped here anymore. This is just stupid.” 

Gerard has to agree. 

Frank considers the boxes, and Gerard considers Frank. 

He knows Frank can probably tell he’s staring, but there’s nothing not-normal about looking at another person, right? Right. So what if he’s particularly fixated on where Frank’s neck meets his shoulder, the line of his collar bone, the splashes of ink covering his- 

“Um,” Frank says, and Gerard’s eyes snap up to meet his. Frank looks- embarrassed, maybe? It’s not a look he’s seen on Frank before. “If you got other shit to do, or just don’t want to, or whatever, I get it - but would you mind helping me load these into the truck? I gotta be at the site in like 10 minutes and it’ll take a while if it’s just me.” 

Gerard wants to say no. Despite working at a hardware store, he’s never one for extracurricular physical labor, and the orders tend to be heavy and unwieldy. Plus, if he just sat at the counter while Frank walked in and out of the store lugging boxes, he’d have a great view. 

He hits the evil, _lazy_ , horny gremlin in his brain over the head. 

No, he’ll help. It’d be a dick move to make Frank late, or sit around and stare while Frank does a couple of back and forths. (The gremlin surrenders, but does remind him that helping Frank will get him a much more up close and personal look, so who really wins here anyhow?) 

Gerard shrugs. 

“Yeah, no problem. I’m not lugging any of the heavy shit though,” he says. Frank laughs. 

“You’re too pretty to do the heavy lifting, I get it.” 

Gerard feels himself flush, deep, but he sighs and cracks a smile anyhow. Frank looks elated. 

“Yeah.” Normal and regular. Gerard is going to be normal and regular about this. “I’ll uh, I’ll get the door.” 

Gerard bolts open the door, and then goes to stand awkwardly by Frank, who is sorting the dozen or so boxes into two piles. He is painfully aware of the distance between him and Frank, not sure if it’s too much or not enough. He stays where he is though, unwilling to move in either direction. 

Frank straightens out and motions toward the pile closer to Gerard. 

“Those shouldn’t be too bad,” He tells him. Gerard nods, and picks up one of the boxes after Frank grabs one from his pile. 

Gerard follows Frank outside, watching the tight line of his shoulder muscles shift as he maneuvers the box to rest against the bumper of the truck. 

It’s the first time Gerard’s gotten a close look at the truck. It’s obviously vintage, probably a couple decades old at least, painted a vibrant sky-blue and spotless.

Gerard isn’t one to get along with men who drive trucks, on a basis of principle, but it’s not one of the big, lifted, Ford Destroyer 666 Extreme trucks, or whatever. This is different. It’s just a nice, tasteful car that happens to be a truck. Frank obviously takes good care of it. 

It’s cute. 

Gerard fights off a smile. 

He waits as Frank unlatches the back, and pushes his own box onto the bed of the truck, and then takes Gerard’s box from him, doing the same. Gerard mumbles a thanks, and they both head back inside. 

They make a couple trips in relative silence, Gerard trailing after Frank, or vice versa. None of the boxes are too heavy, but Gerard is sweating a little bit after the fourth round trip. Frank must be feeling it too, because he moves to lean against the counter when Gerard follows him back in. 

“I gotta quit fuckin’ smoking,” Frank says. 

“Hear, hear,” Gerard says. His lungs are yelling at him and he’s barely done anything. 

“Not gonna though,” Frank adds, and then looking at Gerard, says, “oh! Are you alright?”

Gerard doesn’t think he’s sweating _that_ badly, at least not badly enough for Frank to think he’s going to pass out or whatever. 

“Yeah?” 

“No, I mean, yesterday - you ran off quick when I was checking out. You seemed sick or something.” 

Oh. Fuck. 

“Oh uh, yeah, no I-” Just lie, he just has to lie. “I had a stomach … thing, it’s no big deal. I’m fine now.” Both poorly delivered and kind of gross. Great job. 

Frank isn’t bothered, though. 

“Oh I get that,” Frank tells him. “My stomach hates me.” 

Gerard smiles, a little confused. Frank’s kind of weird, isn’t he?

“What?” 

Frank’s face colors, just the slightest bit, and oh, isn’t _that_ a sight. 

“I mean, like, I get stomach aches a lot. Always have.” Frank tells him. 

Gerard nods. 

“Should we-” he says, motioning toward the boxes left on the floor. 

Frank groans. 

“Yeah, I guess.” 

They make the last two trips, Gerard trailing behind Frank each time - possibly on purpose, possibly because the difference in the tightness in Frank’s shoulders between when he’s carrying something and when he isn’t is fascinating to Gerard. 

“You need me to sign?” Frank asks Gerard, following him back inside after the last trip. 

“Oh, fuck, yeah, gimme a second to pull the slip.” Gerard walks around the counter, and is relieved for space between them. Standing right next to Frank has been - weird. It’s been weird. Different from what he’s used to. 

He clicks through the computer system, and waits for the receipt to print, sighing when the printer decides to take it’s sweet, sweet time. 

“Thanks for helping me out,” Frank says. 

Gerard nods. 

“It was no big deal. You didn’t make me lift any heavy shit and I didn’t have to rot behind the counter for a little while. Win win.” 

Frank nods. 

Finally, the printer forks over the receipt, and Gerard slides it and a pen over to Frank. Something decidedly not normal is wiggling around in his brain, telling him to say something. He doesn’t know what, exactly - but the impulse in there. 

Frank signs the paper and gives it back to him. 

They look at each other. 

“Have a good day, Frank,” Gerard says, and feels stupid immediately after. 

Frank freezes in place, like Gerard just told him he’d fucked his mother, and not said something completely run of the mill. The tension leaves his body, after a second, and he sends a blinding smile Gerard’s way, one that sends a flurry of butterflies through his whole body. 

Fuck. 

“Yeah,” Frank says, “you too.” 

He turns around and walks toward the door, and looks back over his shoulder as he leaves, still smiling. Gerard looks away. 

There’s the noise of the truck starting up and pulling away, and then Gerard is alone. 

Weird. That was weird. 

\-- 

It’d be one thing, Gerard thinks, if Frank kept up the sleaziness of his original approach to flirt-bothering Gerard. It’d be a schtick, some kind of character he had committed to. 

But lately, it’s crept toward sincerity, even if it’s still a little cheesy, and Gerard doesn’t know how to handle that - especially now that he’s decided to just be normal about being on the receiving end of it. 

It feels too close to genuine flirting, too close to something Gerard could let himself engage with and _mean_ it, and he doesn’t like that. He’s already decided he’s not going to be a Lisa in this scenario. 

But after today, he’s starting to understand where Lisa was coming from. 

It must show on his face, because while he’s in the staff room eating his lunch, Patrick walks in, takes one look at him, and asks him what’s wrong. 

“Nothing,” Gerard says - which isn’t necessarily a lie. Nothing is _wrong_ , he’s just mixed up about some stuff. He can’t quite seem to find his footing, even after he decided to ignore the ground altogether. 

“That’s not true. You wanna talk about it?” Patrick asks, grabbing water from the fridge. 

Gerard sighs. 

“I’m just, like, in my own head about some shit. I don’t know.” 

“Is it Frank again?”

“Jesus,” Gerard grumbles, “Bert really doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut.”

“No,” Patrick agrees, “he doesn’t. So you might as well explain what’s going on.” 

“That’s the problem. I have no idea what’s going on. He flirts with me like, all the time, and at the beginning it was stupid and just to bother me, but now it feels more real and I don’t know how to handle it.” 

“Easy,” Patrick says. “Flirt back.” 

“That’s really not easy,” Gerard says. 

“Bullshit. You think he’s hot. He thinks you’re hot. He flirts with you. You flirt with him. Orgasms for everybody. End of story.” 

Gerard rolls his eyes. 

“You’re missing some important bits in there,” he says. 

“Like what?” 

“Like - I have no idea if he actually thinks I’m hot or if he’s just flirting for fun. And if he is just flirting for fun, am I going to look stupid flirting back? And if he is flirting for real - which I don’t think he is - what does he … want?” 

Patrick sighs, and leans against the wall. 

“You’re too in your own head about this, dude. You can just let it happen. You don’t have to have every interaction you will ever have with Frank plotted out before you can even talk to him.” 

Patrick has a point. Gerard tends to get nervous when he doesn’t have control over a situation. And Frank knocks him off balance enough that Gerard never feels like he’s in control when he’s talking to him. 

“I don’t know, man. I guess you’re right on paper, but I don’t know how to apply it, you know?” 

“That’s because you’re stupid.” 

“Hey!” 

What the fuck, Patrick?

Patrick laughs. 

“I mean that in a loving way. I’m stupid about plenty of stuff. You just happen to be stupid about this.” Patrick says kindly enough that Gerard knows he’s being sincere. 

“Anyhow,” Patrick says, making for the door, “after you finish your break Brian wants you to face the shelves.” 

Gerard groans. He fucking hates facing shelves.

“Yeah, yeah - okay,” Gerard says. “Thanks, man.” 

“No problem.” 

Gerard takes a bite of his sandwich, and glumly considers the possibility he’s being stupid about this entire thing. 

He overthinks shit, he knows that. Gerard is intimately aware of his own faults, thank you very much. 

Things were different, relationship wise, before he got sober. That’s why he’s having such a hard time with this, and he knows it. When he was in college it tended to just _happen_ , like it had with Bert. They met, they talked a little, and they hooked up when they felt like it. There’d been a couple of pseudo-relationships - people he went out with, slept with exclusively for several months at a time till it fizzled out for whatever reason. 

After he graduated, after he got sober - it’d been different, more difficult. He had to relearn how to be a person, how to interact with people in a totally different manner. And it’s not like it’s been a three year long dry spell. There’d been Lyn-z, before she moved out to California, and Eliza, before Gerard realized she was … not well. He’s had relationships - but Gerard just doesn’t know how to be casually flirtatious anymore. 

So this whole thing makes him nervous. And stupid, apparently. 

It doesn’t feel stupid to him, though. It just sucks. 

**Wednesday, April 23rd**

_work: 7am - 4pm_ _  
_ _redye ur roots mfer_

Brian isn’t in on Wednesday. Gerard can’t remember why, exactly. It had something to do with the bank. Or his mother. Possibly taking his mother to the bank? He wasn’t listening when Brian had told him. 

Either way, it’s just Gerard and Hayley working right now. Patrick and Bert will be in later, but right now they have the run of the store. Which means they’ve made more than one coffee run in the last three hours, and the small, old radio that sits behind the front counter is on for once, and Hayley had put in some punky CD that Gerard doesn’t quite recognize, but likes all the same. 

When Frank strolls in a little after 10:00, Gerard almost chokes on his coffee. 

Frank almost always looks good, is the thing. But he usually comes in before he’s been to the construction site. So while he’ll be in his construction get-up, he rarely looks like this. 

He’s filthy, for one. There’s dirt smeared on the legs of his jeans, and the bottom hem of his tank top. He’s got work gloves sticking out from his back pocket, and he’s _glistening_ with sweat. Gerard wants to chastise himself for describing anybody, let alone Frank, as glistening, but it’s the only word that works. His tank top is sticking to his stomach in all the right places, and his hair is pushed up at the front, like he’s been attempting to push it off his forehead for the last couple of hours. The sweat makes his tattoos stand out, and the light sunburn he was sporting on Monday has morphed into a light, all over tan. 

He looks fucking drool worthy. 

Gerard swallows the stubborn mouthful of coffee, the roof of his mouth burning, and nods at Frank. 

“Hi,” he says. 

Frank smiles at him.

“Hey Gerard,” he says. He looks behind Gerard, at the back counter, and his eyebrows furrow. “You guys have the order?”

“Oh, shit,” Brian usually does that. “Uh - Hayley?” Gerard calls into the back office - which she’s claimed as her own for the day. 

After a beat, Hayley comes out to the front. 

“Yeah what’s up?” She asks, and then adds, “oh! Hey Frank, how are you?” 

Frank shrugs, but smiles at her politely. 

“Good, I’m good,” he says. “You guys have the order? Or has the truck not come yet?” 

“Oh, fuck, I knew I was forgetting something. Brian brings it out, usually, but he’s not here today. Lemme go dig it out from the back, alright? Give me a couple of minutes.” 

Gerard and Frank both nod, and Hayley disappears into the back of the store. 

A minute of silence. 

“Sorry about that,” Gerard says, “it totally slipped our minds.” 

“It’s no big deal. Getting paid to wait around is better than getting paid to do shit anyhow.” Frank leans against the counter, and Gerard leans back into his stool, just a little. Frank nods at the radio. “You guys having fun while teacher’s away?”

Gerard huffs out a small laugh. 

“Stick it to the man, et cetera, et cetera.” 

Frank smiles, and throws up a lazy rock hand. 

“Right on,” he says. They look at each other, and then both laugh. Frank has a lame streak in him Gerard hasn't noticed before, apparently. 

Another minute of silence, easier this time. Gerard swallows. 

“What are you guys building anyway?” He doesn’t know why he asks. He could argue he’s trying to be normal - it’s normal to make polite conversation - but he hasn’t made a habit of engaging Frank in conversation that isn’t absolutely necessary, and he feels stupid as soon as he’s said it. 

Frank just groans. 

“Some stupid fucking apartment complex,” Frank tells him. “Which is fine, you know? Plenty of people like living in apartments, need to live in apartments. But it’s one of those fancy-ass complexes where rent is gonna start at like 2,500 a month. We don’t need that shit here.” 

“Is it one of the ones with the weird block coloring on the exterior?” Gerard asks. 

Frank snaps his fingers. 

“ _Yes_. The overpriced rent is bad enough, but they’re so ugly too. Who in their right mind is paying to live in these places? Not to mention the fucking, like environmental toll the methods of construction take on the neighborhoods they’re built in!” 

Frank keeps talking. And the pretentious, art-school attendee, anti-capitalist part of Gerard’s brain is thrilled by this line of conversation. He could bitch about these kinds of buildings for hours, and used to do so all the time back when he was in school. 

Architecture majors can be … intense, and Gerard knew a couple of them who would talk your ear off about unsustainable, pre-fab, over priced buildings and how their real purpose is to gentrify neighborhoods for later land development. 

But as much as Gerard is trying to be an active participant in this discussion, his eyes keep slipping off of Frank’s face. Specifically, to his arms and torso, because holy shit, he looks _edible_ right now. Sure, Gerard might have a little bit of an oral fixation, but he’s certain anybody in their right mind who saw Frank looking like this would want to gnaw on him. 

Frank talks with his hands - a lot - which Gerard has never noticed before, but now he can’t look away from the shifting of his muscles as he moves his arms, the tendons in his hands, or, _jesus_ , the tattoos across his knuckles. Gerard’s been with enough people with tattoos to know the ink doesn’t change the taste of the skin underneath, but fuck, does he wanna know what Frank tastes like anyhow. 

Frank laughs, and Gerard is pulled back into the present. He’s smiling at Gerard again, in that filthy fucking way Gerard can’t describe but sends wanting shivers down his spine all the same. 

“You seem pretty enthusiastic about, uh, ethical construction dilemmas,” Frank says to him. Gerard knows Frank caught him staring, but fuck it - it would be stupid of him not to stare. 

“Yeah,” he says, holding eye contact with Frank, “I am.” He’s blushing, he can feel the heat in his face, but he doesn’t care. 

Frank raises an eyebrow at him, surprised, and then looks down at the counter, an uncertain smile on his face. 

Hayley comes out from the back, then, carrying a box and looking pissed off. She places it down in front of Gerard. 

“Remind me to tell Brian not to put these things where only he can find them, yeah? Also, I found another dead rat.” 

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Gerard says, looking over at her. “Leave it for Bert, he owes me one.” 

Hayley laughs, and then they both turn toward Frank, who has straightened up and put a little distance between him and Gerard. 

“You ever figure out what was going on with your engine?” Hayley asks Frank, and he rolls his eyes. 

“No, I’m still mad about it. I had to take it to a shop.” 

“That sucks. Did it run you a lot?” 

Frank shakes his head. 

“Nah, I know the guy who owns it, he did it just for the cost of the parts. It wasn’t too bad.” 

“Oh, that’s good!” Hayley says, and then looks at Gerard. “Can you pull the slip up?” 

“Shit, yeah, my bad,” he says. 

Hayley and Frank continue to chat while Gerard runs the package through the system and prints the receipt out, and something is off about their conversation, but Gerard doesn’t know what. 

He hands the receipt to Frank, who smiles at him when he takes it. He signs it, and hands it right back. 

“Alright, I gotta go - you guys have a nice day,” Frank tells them. 

“See ya, Frankie,” Hayley says, and Gerard mumbles something similar - still caught up in trying to figure out what’s bothering him. 

Frank leaves, and then it’s just Hayley and Gerard. 

It hits him. 

Gerard swirls around in his stool, and faces Hayley, who is fiddling with the radio. 

“Do you know him?” Gerard asks. 

“Who, Frank?” 

“Yeah. Did he used to come in a lot before I started working here, or-” Gerard trails off, not knowing how to finish his sentence. The conversation had been too familiar for Hayley and Frank to just know each other from the store. 

Hayley cocks her head and stares at him for a moment, and then a gleeful smile breaks out over her face. 

“Oh my god,” she says, “Is Frank the dude you have a crush on? Patrick was talking about it the other day, but didn’t say who he was!” She looks _so_ entertained by this turn of events. 

“Well, I - no, that’s not-” There’s no point in lying, Gerard realizes. “Nobody in this fucking store can keep their mouth shut.” 

Hayley claps her hands together.

“Oh this is great. Like, seriously fantastic.” 

“It’s not a crush,” Gerard defends himself, even though it sounds hollow to his own ears. Then mumbles, “I just think he’s hot.” 

“Alright, well, based on what I heard from Patrick and what I just saw, you absolutely do have a crush on him. Which is good, because otherwise I was gonna give you a lecture about how we don’t undress paying customers with our eyes while at work. But who cares about that now! Frank and Gerard, oh my god. I love this.” 

“ _Fine_ , fuck you, whatever. It doesn’t matter, I don’t think he likes me like that anyhow. But answer my question, at least,” Gerard says. 

“Oh!” Hayley says. “Yeah, me and Frank are in the same knitting club. Every Wednesday at the community college. We’re called ‘The Bad Stitches’.” 

Gerard blanches. A _knitting club_? Hayley, yeah, maybe he can picture her doing that - especially if Lindsey dragged her into it, but Frank? Fucking Frank, sitting around once a week in a knitting circle? That’s just-

“Oh fuck you, you’re messing with me, aren’t you?” Gerard asks. 

Hayley laughs, loud and unapologetic. 

“Yeah, but you should have seen the look on your face. I have never seen anybody look so confused. Priceless.” 

Gerard rolls his eyes. 

“You’re such a dick,” he tells her. “Are you gonna tell me how you actually know him?” 

Hayley thinks for a moment, looking torn. 

“Nope,” she eventually decides on, popping the p for emphasis. 

“I hate it here,” Gerard says. 

“Aw, don’t feel too bad. I think it’s cute.” 

“What, so my personal life is up for discussion, but as soon as I bring up you and Lindsey, you’re suddenly Fort Knox?” 

Hayley smiles. 

“Yeah! Exactly. I’m glad you’re catching on.” She looks too smug for her own good. “Anyhow, he does like you. I’m like, almost certain of it.” 

“Almost certain still isn’t certain,” Gerard says. “Besides, even if you were certain, it wouldn’t matter anyway. I’m not going to do anything about it.” 

“Why?” Hayley asks. She seems genuinely curious. 

Gerard shrugs. He might as well put up a bulletin at this point, he’s sick of explaining this to his coworkers. 

He could hope that they’ll just keep their noses out of his business, but that’s about as likely as him waking up tomorrow with superpowers, so, it’s whatever. 

“I don’t feel like getting into it. I just don’t think it’s worth it. He flirts with me, yeah, whatever - I just don’t think it means anything besides that he likes to flirt.” 

“Does he flirt with anybody else? Does he flirt with me?” Hayley asks. 

“Well, no-” 

“Then there’s your answer!” Hayley says. She pats him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I know you’ll figure it out. I put money down that you would make a move eventually.” 

Gerard sighs. 

“Thanks,” he says. Then, “wait, what the fuck. Is there a _bet_?” 

Hayley laughs. 

**Friday, April 25th.  
** _work: 7am - 4pm._ __  
_clean the sink!!! it’s still covered in hairdye!!_ _  
_ _also wear gloves next time asshole._

Friday drags by, which it usually does, but it’s made worse by the fact that Gerard has the full, actual weekend off for once. He never gets the weekend off, and it’s a luxury he cannot wait to indulge in. In his case, indulging in the weekend means not leaving his bed for as long as possible, and then maybe getting breakfast with Mikey and Ray on Sunday. That’s kind of lame of him, sure, but Gerard is kind of a lame guy. He knows this about himself. 

Gerard spends the day powering through routine - if irritating - customer service interactions, trying to decide what he’s going to watch when he gets home, and trying and failing not to notice that Frank never comes in. 

He doesn’t want to fixate on it, refuses to fixate on it. It’s a nice break. Being and normal and regular about Frank has helped, some, but it also tends to be fucking exhausting, and it’s good that he hasn’t come in today. It’s good. 

Hell, he’s going to have a full three days that are Frank free, if he includes the weekend. Doesn’t that count as luxury? It should. 

A little before 3:00, when Gerard has finally started allowing himself to glance at the clock more regularly, shouting breaks out in Brian’s office. 

This isn’t entirely out of the norm - Brian has definitely gotten testy on the phone before, usually with suppliers giving him the run-around, but this seems personal, and lasts longer than it usually does. 

Gerard tries his best to not look like he’s eavesdropping, even though he is absolutely eavesdropping, but he can’t quite make out what’s wrong through the closed door. 

It quiets down after a couple minutes, and Gerard hurries back to his stool when he hears Brian’s footsteps start toward the door. 

The door opens, and Gerard spins around and looks at Brian. He’s a little red in the face, and is wearing an interesting combo of annoyance and rage that usually only gets directed toward people who are rude to his employees. Gerard’s curiosity is piqued. 

Brian scrubs a hand over his face. 

“Can I ask you for a favor?” 

“Of course, what’s up?” 

“I’ll pay you an hour of overtime for it, and you won’t even have to come back after it’s done, even if you finish before 4:00,” Brian says. 

Gerard nods. He still hasn’t said what the favor is. 

“Sure, what is it?” He asks. 

“I just got off the phone with the Altura site manager, who I fucking _hate_ , by the way. But he called me bitching about how a part they need _now_ got shipped to us by accident, and when I go okay, send one of your guys over, he starts yelling about how he needs all his men on site, and since it got shipped to my store, one of _my_ employees should bring it over. Like it’s my fault that fucking dickhead can’t read when an address incorrectly autofills on his order form, and like _my_ employees don’t also have jobs to do.” 

“So you need me to bring it over?” 

Brian sighs. 

“Yes, please.” 

Gerard shrugs. 

“Alright, no problem. Where is it?” 

“I’ll go grab it. Thanks, Gerard.” Brian says. 

“Of course.”

Brian goes into the back to get the package, and Gerard realizes his day isn’t going to be Frank-less after all. Which he feels completely neutral about, of course, because despite the … all of it, he is being normal and regular about the situation. So of course he doesn’t feel strongly either way about this. 

He’s getting off early, and getting paid overtime. That’s what matters. He’s going to be at _Frank’s_ work for once, sure - but that’s no big deal. 

It’ll be fine. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! kudos and comments are appreciated but i appreciate you anyways :^>
> 
> next chapter is gonna be a little different im excited! see you then


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard doesn’t know what time it is, has no idea when the next bus is coming, but realizes he doesn’t quite care. He’s content to stand and smoke and talk with Frank for a while, even if it is kind of cold out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. hello sorry this is technically a day late this week has been a doozy 4 me. thank u for waiting patiently if u have been waiting. 
> 
> 2\. this chapter contains some mild derogatory language and implied threat of violence toward women - nothing happens and it ends well, I just wanted to warn that. 
> 
> 3\. please vote oh my god please vote please please please.

**Friday, April 25th.  
** _work: 7am - 4pm._ _  
_ _clean the sink!!! it’s still covered in hairdye!!_ _  
_ _also wear gloves next time asshole._

Brian brings out a fairly large box, and places it on the counter in front of Gerard. 

“It’s just this,” he says, “the site is right down the street - you probably pass it on your way here.” 

Gerard nods - there’s a big Altura banner on the fencing around the site. Not that he’d admit it to anyone, but he’s taken to staring at it when the bus passes that way in the mornings. And at night. Pretty much whenever he’s on the bus. 

The point being - he knows where the site is. 

Gerard makes a quick trip to the bathroom before he leaves - tells Brian he’ll just be a minute, but he’s washing his hands and makes the mistake of looking up into the mirror. 

Brian makes them wear these powder blue polos as uniforms. They’re better than the shirt he had to wear at Barnes and Noble - less abrasive of a color and not as itchy. But Gerard’s shirt is at least two sizes too big for him, and hangs off of him, leaving him looking rumpled and awkward. Whenever he wears it he feels like a kid playing dress up in their parents clothes. 

Brian has told him half a dozen times that he’ll order Gerard a shirt that fits properly soon, but soon hasn’t come yet. So while everybody else gets to look like regular adult humans in their uniforms, he just looks stupid. 

His hair has been a disaster area the last couple of months. After he got fired, he bleached the top chunk of it at two in the morning while bored out of his mind. He’s since dyed over it - black to match the rest of his hair - but it still looks fried, and never lays right. He needs a haircut too, he thinks, trying to blow his bangs out of his eyes while he dries his hands. His mom told him he looked like a ‘gutter child’ the other day - whatever the fuck that means - and offered to trim it for him, but he’d opted out. 

Running a hand through his hair, though, he kind of regrets it now. Which is stupid. Standing here in the mirror, picking apart his reflection just because he’s going to see somebody he sees practically everyday, is fucking stupid. 

Frank knows what he looks like. 

Besides, he’s not even going to the site to _see_ Frank specifically. He’s going to make a delivery, get paid a little extra, and then go home and enjoy his weekend. He might not even run into Frank. He probably won’t, actually. So there’s no reason to be standing in the bathroom - staring at his pale face and under eye circles in the mirror - feeling anxious about an unlikely possibility. 

There’s no real reason to be all anxious about it. 

He cocks an eyebrow and tilts his head to the side, making eye contact with his reflection. He doesn’t even look like he believes himself. 

He walks out of the bathroom, turning the lights off as he goes. 

The package is still sitting on the front counter, but Brian has retreated back into his office. Gerard picks it up, and immediately realizes he is not going to be able to carry this thing for five blocks straight without looking like an absolute fool, and possibly injuring himself or others. 

He knocks on Brian’s office door, and swings it open when Brian tells him to come in. 

“Hey, do you have the thing? I’m not gonna be able to carry that shit all the way to the Altura site,” Gerard says. 

Brian looks up from his desktop, eyebrows drawn together. 

“Thing? What thing?” He asks. 

Gerard flaps his hand at him, making a vague approximation of the shape of the thing in the air, like that explains it. 

“I need a little more than that, Gerard,” Brian says. He looks exhausted. 

“The thing! The … box-pusher thing. You know!” 

Brian’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline cartoonishly fast. 

“Do you mean a hand truck?” 

“Yeah? I mean, probably?” Gerard says. “The like, metal thing you use to push boxes better.” 

Brian lets out a laugh, and stands up from his desk. 

“How the fuck have you worked in a hardware store for months and you don’t know what that’s called?” 

Gerard just shrugs. 

“Whatever,” Brian says. “I’ll bring the _hand truck_ around front.” 

They get the box loaded onto the _hand truck_ \- and really, Gerard thinks, metal box-pusher thing was a fine enough name for it, Brian figured out what he meant, didn’t he? - and Gerard heads out of the store and down the street. 

It’s warm out, somewhere in the low-70’s, probably, and Gerard is thankful he didn’t wear an undershirt today. Even with the hand truck, this box isn’t super easy to push, and while the Altura site isn’t that far away, it’s a pretty far distance for a guy who smokes almost a pack a day to walk to while pushing a 50 pound box. 

The walk isn’t terrible. A couple people give him odd looks, but that probably has to do more with him than it does the box. He’s sweating slightly, and stops a couple of times to wipe the sweat off his forehead so it doesn’t drip into his eyes. 

He gets there quicker than he thought he would, and ends up stopping dumbly in front of the entrance. What now? There’s nobody guarding the entrance - obviously, it’s a fucking construction site, not a boss battle arena - but he doesn’t want to get yelled at. Fuck, he didn’t ask Brian where on the site he was supposed to bring the box to. He doesn’t even know the name of the site manager. 

He figures the only thing he can do is walk around until somebody realizes he’s not supposed to be there and approaches him, and then he can explain. Right before he got fired from Barnes and Noble, he was sent to the Staples next door to ask their manager if the store could borrow some quarters. But he didn’t want to bother anybody working, so he just walked around the store for a half an hour until somebody asked him if needed help, and then he had explained. 

And well, maybe, that could have been one of the reasons he’d gotten fired, since that task should have taken him five minutes at most, but whatever. 

He walks past the open gates into the site, glances around, and decides straight forward is as good a direction as any to walk in. 

The site isn’t teeming with people like he expected it to be, but it is larger than he thought it was. He thinks he can hear some people yelling a floor or two up in the building, where they haven’t started installing the exterior walls yet, but he’s not sure. There are a couple of trailers lining the back edge of the site, and Gerard hazards a guess he should probably be heading toward one of those - but he has no idea which. 

He rounds a corner of the building, and there are two men he doesn’t recognize smoking under the shade of the scaffolding. They both stare at him for a minute, and then go back to talking to one another. Gerard walks past them. He doesn’t want to intrude. 

A woman is coming down the pathway toward him, and Gerard wants to stop her and ask her where he should go, but then he realizes she’s wearing her street clothes and is talking on her cellphone. If Gerard has learned one thing over his years of customer service, it’s that you do not bother an employee who is visibly off the clock, no matter how badly you need help. So he throws a closed-mouth smile at her, and keeps walking. 

He turns another corner, nearing the back edge of the lot now. 

“You lost?” a familiar voice shouts at him, and Gerard turns around - Frank is walking toward him from a couple feet away, a confused grin on his face. 

“Hi,” Gerard says, aware of how relieved he sounds. Who cares, though? He is relieved. He has no idea where he’s supposed to be going, and he really doesn’t want to get yelled at by somebody for being here, or for not wearing a hardhat, or whatever. 

“What are you doing here?” Frank asks him. 

“I, uh-” Gerard swallows, hard, and tries to remember why he is here - because Frank looks fucking good right now, and he’s suddenly having trouble remembering how to focus on anything that isn’t the smudge of dirt on Frank’s shoulder, or the bead of sweat running down his neck. He shakes his head a little, trying to snap out of it. Frank is staring at him, waiting for an answer - and clearly aware that Gerard is more focused on the lines of Frank’s shoulders than the question he was asked. He ignores that. “Brian said your site manager got this delivered to the shop by accident and was giving him grief about getting it dropped off. He let me off early to go bring it over, but I have no idea where I’m supposed to be bringing it to.” 

Frank laughs. His eyebrows raise, just slightly, like they usually do before he says some ridiculous line - and when did Gerard become so well acquainted with Frank’s facial expressions, exactly? - but then he shakes his head, and motions for Gerard to give him the hand truck. Gerard hesitates for a moment, and then turns the handles toward Frank. 

“Thank fucking god,” Frank says, “Mike has been a nightmare all day because of this. I thought he was gonna attack the delivery guy when he didn’t have it.” 

“What is it?” Gerard asks. He doesn’t really understand how building things outside of miniatures works, honestly, so he doesn’t know why he asks. 

“Something for the support beams, I think? Not sure, honestly. But c’mon, I’ll help you bring it over.” 

“Thanks,” Gerard says, and then they’re turning around and heading back toward where he came from. “Guess I was lost, huh?” 

Frank looks over at him and smiles, wiping his hand across his forehead as he does so. Gerard’s breath catches slightly. 

“Only a whole lot,” Frank teases. “Brian let you off early?” 

Gerard nods, and then realizes Frank probably can’t see out of his periphery, since Gerard is about half a step behind him as they walk. For a short guy, Frank sure seems to be a speedy motherfucker when he wants to be. 

“Yeah, only by like an hour, but whatever. That’s one whole hour added to my weekend, at least.” 

“You have the weekend off?” 

“Yeah.”

“Good for you - that’s what I hated about retail, half the time my weekends were on like Tuesdays and Wednesdays,” Frank says. 

“Yeah, it gets, uh, confusing,” Gerard says - but only half heartedly. He doesn’t disagree, and some more evolved part of his brain wants to ask Frank what retail jobs he used to work, but he made the mistake of glancing down at Frank’s ass - mostly by accident, fuck you very much - and he’s struggling to retain his grasp of the English language. 

Frank really is so fucking hot. This is like when he had to help Frank haul those boxes out to his truck all over again - except it’s worse, because they’re on Frank’s territory now, and Frank’s all sweaty and flushed, the sun bouncing off his tattoos - basically, this whole situation is really, _really_ doing it for Gerard. Which is bad. Because they are at a construction site, and Gerard is supposed to be working right now. 

“- so what do you think?” Frank asks, and Gerard realizes he hasn’t listened to a word Frank has been saying. 

“Hmm?” Gerard says. 

Frank stops walking, and Gerard trips a little bit, surprised. Frank puts a hand on his shoulder to steady him, and Gerard has to stop himself from leaning into the touch. Frank’s hand lingers, just for a second, and then drops back to his side, flexing ever so slightly. 

Frank has really nice hands, Gerard thinks. But no, that’s not the point - he can’t miss the same question twice because he can’t stop staring at Frank. He has to pay attention. He looks down at Frank’s face. 

Frank is looking right back at him, the corners of his mouth pulled up slightly, like he’s trying not to laugh. 

“I asked if you wanted to get a drink after we’re done here?” 

Gerard blinks. 

“Like, together?” 

Frank laughs, loud.

“I mean, preferably, yeah. You said you had the weekend off, right? I’m already off the clock - I was on my way out when I saw you. Figured I would at least ask.” Frank says, soft, almost uncertain - devastatingly out of character and earnest as hell. 

Gerard’s stomach flips. He has to say no, right? It’s one thing to stare at Frank’s arms and think about biting them - it’s a whole different thing to get a drink with him. Why the fuck is Frank asking him to get a drink? He wasn’t expecting this, at all, and he’s thrown by it. It will be a disaster if he agrees. He has to say no. He has to. 

He opens his mouth, ready to make an excuse - but then a small, certain voice in the back of his mind tells him he’s making the wrong choice, and he falters. 

“I-” Frank is looking up at him, his face open and hopeful. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.” 

Frank smiles - it’s not the filthy smile he’s always throwing Gerard’s way, or even the bright and cheery one he’ll give to Gerard’s coworkers when they tell him to have a nice day. It’s honest and genuine and heart attack beautiful. 

“Great,” Frank says, still smiling. “Let’s go give this to Mike and get the fuck outta dodge.” 

\--

They end up walking to a bar a couple blocks down the road, in the opposite direction of the store. Gerard thinks he’s been here once or twice - maybe with Mikey to see a couple of small shows, but he’s not sure. It’s been a long time since he’s been to any bar. 

That’s the thing - he agreed because he didn’t know how to say no to Frank, not when he was looking at him like that, not while he looks like _that_ \- Gerard’s self preservation skills can only go so far in the face of hot guys staring at him with puppy dog eyes, he knows this about himself. 

But now he’s in a _bar_ , and Gerard really hasn’t made a habit of hanging out at bars since he got sober - call him crazy, but he thinks that makes sense. 

What might be the worst part of this situation, though, is Gerard can’t even muster up the anxiety necessary to have a freak out about being at a bar, because all of his anxiety is going toward the fact that Frank is sitting next to him, bathed in dim, warm bar light, looking so fucking good Gerard thinks he might explode. 

It’s a fairly small place, and Frank is probably some kind of regular - since the bartender had smiled and said ‘Hi Frankie’ when they’d sat down, and promised to be with them in just a minute. It isn’t crowded, the music is quiet enough that Gerard can hear himself think, and it isn’t a place trying to be something it’s not - like all those faux-exposed brick and industrial lighting places that have popped up lately. 

It’s just a good, honest dive bar. 

Frank looks like he belongs here - Gerard’s brain is already making sweeping strokes of imaginary paint, fitting him right into the scene - no, that’s not right. The scene would build out from Frank - dark wood and warm light and the haze of large brush strokes. Stunning with a hint of grime, his face half shadow in the light - something begging to be known. 

Frank has his elbows on the bartop, squinting at the smudged chalkboard behind the bar that - presumably - has the specials written on it. Gerard can’t make out what it says - it’s in a messy scrawl that seems like a lazy cross between cursive and block letters. It’s almost impressively illegible. 

The bartender comes over their way, and stops in front of them. 

“Hey Frankie, I haven’t seen you in forever,” she says. “What can I get you guys?” She’s eyeing Gerard curiously as she says it, like she’s waiting for an introduction, or an explanation as to why Frank brought an uncomfortable looking, sweaty guy in an ugly polo shirt into her bar. 

“What’s with this chalkboard shit, Ash?” Frank asks, in lieu of greeting. Ash rolls her eyes. 

“Bossman made us put it up, he’s trying to attract a ‘hipper crowd’, whatever the fuck that means. It’s a ‘specialty cocktail menu’.” Gerard is impressed by the amount of venom Ash manages to fit into the phrase specialty cocktail menu. 

“Are any of them good?” Frank asks. 

Ash shrugs. 

“I haven’t tried ‘em,” she says. “One of them is like, neon blue though. That’s pretty cool.” 

“Gimme the blue one, then, why the fuck not,” Frank says, and turns toward Gerard. “What are you drinking? I’ll get the first round.”

Gerard swallows, and feels his face warm. He looks up at Ash. 

“Can I just get a water?” He asks. 

Ash blinks at him, and then nods. “No problem! Those will be right over.” 

Gerard looks over at Frank, who has an eyebrow raised - like he’s trying to decide whether he’s going to ask why Gerard isn’t drinking or not. Gerard decides to put him out of his misery. 

“I don’t drink anymore,” Gerard says, wringing his hands together in his lap. People can get kind of weird when he tells them that, and he really hopes Frank isn’t going to be one of those people. 

Frank’s mouth drops open a little, and then he frowns. 

“Aw, man, you should have said - we could have gotten veggie burgers instead.” 

Frank knows how to be gentle when it matters, it seems, and isn’t that unexpected? Gerard smiles at him. 

“It’s no big deal. I ate like, two hours ago anyhow.” 

“That’s quitter talk - you ever been to the Moonlite, across town? I could eat like four orders of their fries after a full fucking Sunday dinner, they’re that good.” 

“Sal’s is better and you know it,” Gerard counters. 

Frank looks personally, almost mortally offended. 

“ _Sal’s_? Fucking Sal’s? Are you joking?” 

Gerard laughs. 

“Absolutely not. Moonlite can never get the salt right. They’re either bland as hell or it’s like licking a shaft in a salt mine,” Gerard argues. 

Frank opens his mouth, but Gerard cuts him off. 

“Yeah, yeah, you’d like to see me lick your salt shaft or whatever - not right now. We’re arguing about fries. I’m right and you know it.” 

He doesn’t know where that line comes from - it just happens. Gerard would regret it, but Frank is blushing hard enough that Gerard can see it in the dim lighting, and he’s too pleased by that to feel awkward about it. 

“God damn,” Frank says. “I was _going_ to say that I usually salt my fries to hell anyhow, so I don’t mind either way, but okay! I see where your brain is.” He’s smiling at Gerard, looking far too happy at this turn of events - so Gerard rolls his eyes.

“Asshole,” he mumbles. 

“Yup!” Frank agrees. 

Ash comes back over with their drinks - a bottle of water and an impossibly blue liquid. 

“One water,” she says, putting Gerard’s drink in front of him, “and one Sex in the Driveway.” They both chuckle at the name, and Gerard decidedly does not look over at Frank - he focuses on unwrapping his straw instead. 

Frank hands Ash a twenty. 

“How much change do you want back?” She asks. 

“Nah,” Frank says, “keep it.” 

“Frank…” 

“Shut up and keep it, Ash.” Frank has his jaw jutted out slightly, like it’s a challenge. Ash stares at him for a second, and then shrugs. 

“Whatever,” she says. “It’s your money that you’re throwing away.” 

“Go do whatever it is you get paid to do,” Frank tells her. She laughs and walks away. 

Gerard looks at the drink Frank ordered. 

“That is … alarmingly blue,” he says. 

“Isn’t it!” Frank sounds excited. “It looks like fucking Windex.” He takes a sip. “Tastes like peaches, though.” 

“Huh,” Gerard says, and Frank nods in agreement. 

Frank sips at his drink quietly while Gerard picks at the label on his. This is why he doesn’t go out often, and certainly not with people who are practically strangers. Lulls in conversation when you’re with somebody you know well are different - they’re comfortable, they don’t beg to be filled. If he, Mikey, and Ray are silent for a while when they’re eating dinner, it’s normal. Eventually one of them will start the conversation back up, and they all go from there. 

But Gerard feels stupid and useless sitting in this bar that is littered with groups of people talking and joking while he has nothing to say. It doesn’t matter that Frank seems fine with sitting quietly for a little while - it’s making Gerard’s skin crawl. He doesn’t know why he even said yes to coming here. The regret is rising higher and higher in him as the seconds tick by. 

But then he looks up from his water at Frank, who’s looking around the room, holding his comically blue drink, and all he wants to do is laugh. If you had told him three weeks ago that Frank, the irritating guy from Altura, casually drinks ridiculous cocktails when he comes to dive bars, Gerard would have laughed in your face. It’s so fucking unlike him, unlike the picture Gerard has created of Frank in his head. 

It must be a comical sight - Frank sitting there, covered in tattoos, in work boots and filthy jeans, drinking a cocktail topped with a little umbrella and sitting next to _Gerard_ of all people, while he just glances around the room with wide eyes and half a smile on his face, like he’s pleased as all hell to be here. 

Frank turns his head back toward Gerard and smiles at him, and Gerard notices a smudge of dirt on Frank’s cheek that he hadn’t seen before. 

The regret drains out of Gerard, and an uncertain warmth takes its place.

“Oh,” Gerard says. He motions towards Frank’s face. “You have some dirt on your cheek.” 

Frank puts his drink down and rubs at his face, but the dirt stays. 

“Here,” Gerard says, grabbing a napkin and dabbing some water on it, “let me-” He wipes the napkin carefully over the smudge Frank’s cheek, and he feels Frank lean lightly in the touch. His breath catches. They stay like that for a moment, Gerard practically cupping Frank’s cheek, until Gerard pulls away. 

“There you go,” he says. It comes out quiet, a little rough. He can see Frank’s throat work as he swallows. 

“Thanks,” Frank says. 

And all of a sudden it’s easy. 

Frank launches them into a discussion about how he’s pretty sure his site manager is stiffing them all on their paychecks, and Gerard tells him he should call his union rep - which leads them into a conversation about unions, and then horrible bosses. Gerard tells Frank the story about the time he worked at a grocery store for a month and a half in high school and quit by throwing his hat at his manager, which makes Frank laugh so hard he chokes on his drink. 

"Wait, wait," Frank says, when he finally catches his breath. "You just threw your fucking hat at the guy and told him to go fuck himself?" 

Gerard thinks he's blushing, but he's not sure. 

"I mean he was gonna fire me anyway, and I _knew_ he was just trying to cover his own ass by saying I misread the schedule. He'd had it out for me since the beginning." 

"But you threw your hat at him?" 

"It was that or the shopping cart I was pushing, so."

Frank starts back up laughing again. 

Frank tells Gerard that he started working in construction because he did some relief work after 9/11 - he had never really pictured himself going to college anyway, and he enjoyed working with his hands, so he just stuck with it. Gerard tries his best not to make moon eyes at Frank while he tells this story, but he doesn’t think he succeeds. There’s something deeply endearing about picturing Frank all young and bright eyed, wanting to help people in some kind of real, tangible way. 

"What?" Frank asks him. 

Gerard shakes his head, tries to school his face into something that isn't so openly soft. 

"It's just kind of adorable, is all," he says. 

Frank ducks his head and smiles uncertainly. 

"It's whatever, you know? Now it's just a paycheck." 

Gerard tells Frank about art school - how awkward it was to work with live models at first, and the one memorable time freshman year when this pretty girl their age had modeled for them, and one of the guys in the class had popped a boner and had to excuse himself. Frank is deeply disappointed to learn that most of the time the models were men who were well into their 70s, and that there is usually nothing sexy about sitting in a poorly ventilated classroom, sweating, inhaling charcoal, and trying to figure out proper proportions. 

"I promise you there aren't super secret sexy modeling sessions going on at art schools. Movies and porn lied to you, Frankie," Gerard says. Frankie? Why'd he call him Frankie? Whatever. 

"But you said a hot girl modeled for you one time!" Frank argues. 

"Yeah, _once_ , over four years and like twice as a many drawing classes. It's almost always just old men." 

"Are they-" 

"No, the old men are never hot." 

Frank pouts. Gerard laughs. 

Somehow the conversation turns to movies, and Gerard feels so vindicated when Frank agrees that the Dawn of the Dead remake doesn’t have a leg to stand on when compared to the original. Gerard tells Frank he’s going to use him as backup the next time he ropes Adam into that argument. Frank gets quiet for a minute, then, and Gerard worries he’s outed himself as too much of a nerd - but then Frank asks him if he’s ever read the graphic novelization of Dawn of the Dead, and Gerard is torn between cumming in his pants and proposing marriage on the spot. 

"I can't believe you read comics," Gerard says. He tries really hard not to be the nerdy dude who has to out-nerd other people who are trying to relate to him - but this is just out of left field. 

"I'm 5'6 on a good day, have chronic stomach problems, and was decidedly not cool in high school. Of course I read comics," Frank says, like he has to defend his nerd credibility. 

"Yeah but-" Gerard realizes he's about to say 'yeah, but you're hot now', and cuts himself off. 

Frank cocks his head at him. 

"Yeah, but what?" He asks. 

"Nothing," Gerard says, shaking his head. "I'm just surprised." 

Gerard glances at the old, shitty digital clock behind the bar, and he’s shocked when he sees that they’ve been talking for over an hour. Maybe this isn’t fair of him, maybe he needs to reconsider how he generalizes people in his own head - but he hadn’t expected Frank to have _substance_ to him. He’s a real, individual person - yes, obviously. But Gerard has met so many shitty dudes who’s personalities don’t extend beyond beer, trucks, and golf - and that’s what he’s been expecting Frank to be like. 

Well, if he’s being honest, maybe that’s what he’s been _hoping_ Frank is like, so he has a reason to write him off, not care about this too much. But no - Frank has been sitting here talking to him about relief work and comic books and diner fries, and it’s been so easy and familiar that Gerard’s chest aches with it. He thinks he might be in trouble here. 

Frank is talking about his job again, saying how he enjoys it, but that he thinks it’s run its course, that it might be time for him to do something else. The emotion wheel in Gerard’s head flips back and forth between petulant and interested. If Frank leaves Altura, he won’t come in anymore, and Gerard has started expecting Frank to come in, he enjoys it, even. It breaks up the day, at least. 

His curiosity wins out, though. 

“Like what?” Gerard asks. 

Frank shrugs, embarrassed. 

“I was thinking about going to culinary school, but I don’t know. Maybe I just watch too much MasterChef.” 

“Well, do you like cooking?” Gerard asks. 

“Yeah,” Frank says. “My family does dinners like every other week, usually. I do a lot of the cooking for them but - it’s family, you know. A compliment from your mother never counts.” 

“That’s not the point, though,” Gerard says, leaning against the bar, closer to Frank. “If you like cooking and think you would enjoy doing it as a job, you should at least try going to school for it. You go to school to learn, you know? You don’t have to be perfect when you start. They don’t expect that from you.” 

Frank is looking into Gerard’s eyes as he talks, and there’s something about the look on his face that makes Gerard want to lean in even closer - fill his line of sight with Frank and only Frank. He shifts on his stool, closer, and Frank glances down at his mouth, and Gerard licks his lips. He thinks, maybe, he- 

“You fucking bitch. You stiffed me! I gave you a hundred, gimme my change.” 

Gerard and Frank both snap their heads towards the source of the commotion. 

On the other end of the bar, there’s a big, angry, drunk blond man berating Ash. He’s red in the face and swaying slightly, and Ash is standing behind the bar with her arms crossed and a deadly look on her face. 

“Bob, I literally don’t know how many times we’re gonna have to do this - you didn’t pay me with a hundred dollar bill, because we _don’t accept one hundred dollar bills_. I gave you the right change.” 

Bob puts his hands down on the bar and leans in. Gerard thinks he’s trying to look intimidating, but it’s probably more to help keep his balance than anything else. 

“Gimme me money before I take it, you dumb fuckin slut,” Bob says, and Frank shoots across the room. 

Frank crowds into Bob’s space, on his toes, his hands fisted in Bob’s shirt. Gerard just stares. 

“Who the _fuck_ taught you to talk to women like that, you sack of shit?” Frank’s voice is loud, but pitch dark and serious. “Apologize and fucking leave, before I rip your fucking throat out.” 

Bob stares dumbly down at Frank, like he doesn’t understand how he ended up with an angry short guy threatening to end his life all of a sudden. Frowning, he opens his mouth to speak, when, presumably, one of Bob’s friends steps up. 

Gerard stands up, not sure if he should go help, and not sure if trying to help is going to end in him losing several teeth. Bar fights were never really his style, even when he did drink. 

“Bob, let’s get out of here. It’s not worth it,” The friend says. 

“But-” 

“No, man, let’s go.” 

Frank looks at the guy, and then lets go of Bob’s shirt, and backs up a step. 

“Get him the fuck out of the bar, Dewees. You too. I thought I told you to stay the fuck outta here after last month.” Gerard can see Frank practically vibrating with anger. 

The friend - Dewees, throws his hands up in surrender. 

“We’re going, Frank. We’re going.” 

“Well then get gone.” 

Frank stands there and watches as Dewees leads Bob across the bar and out the door. Once it shuts behind them, he leans over the bar and argues with Ash for a moment, his face serious and voice low. They finally seem to agree on something, and Frank reaches across the bar and touches her lightly on the shoulder, nods, and heads back toward Gerard. 

Gerard sits back down in his chair. 

His adrenaline is pumping like crazy, even though that fight had nothing to do with him. Frank had been _angry_ , he’s still red in the face as he sits back down next to Gerard. That had been- unexpected, stupid. _Brave_ , a voice in his head says. 

Bob was twice the size of Frank, and he’d gotten in his face like it was nothing, like it was a fight he could win if he had to. 

Gerard’s been to plenty of shitty bars, shitty diners, just regular Starbucks - he’s seen countless fucking women get berated like that by customers. And it’s horrible, and uncomfortable, and Gerard sticks up for them when he can, when he doesn’t think he’ll end up dead in a ditch if he does - but Frank didn't seem to care about his skin in the game at all. He just ran over there - pissed off and ready to tell him to leave, or make him leave. 

And if Gerard is playing ‘Unexpected Things About Frank BINGO’ he thinks that just won him the game, like holy shit. That was brave, and just - the right thing to do. He’s a little floored. 

Frank takes a final sip of his drink, the straw sucking loudly in the glass, and then looks at Gerard, sheepish. 

“Sorry about that,” Frank says. “I just-” 

“No,” Gerard cuts him off. “Don’t apologize. That was really good of you.” 

Frank shrugs, like he’s not sure about that. 

“It’s whatever. Somebody had to do it.” 

“And yet you decided to do it, you didn’t even think about it. Don’t write that off.”

Frank looks down at his drink, and spins the left over ice in the glass. 

“You ready to get out of here?” Frank asks. “We technically gotta leave because I ‘started’ the ‘fight’, but Ash said we could finish our drinks first.” 

“Uh, yeah, sure, if you’re done?” 

“Done as I’ll ever be,” Frank says, standing up. 

Frank says a quick goodbye to Ash, who tells him to stay out of trouble. He laughs. 

They step outside together. 

It’s cooled down some, now that the sun has set. Gerard shivers, and regrets not bringing his jacket with him. 

“You have a car parked at the store?” Frank asks him. 

Gerard shakes his head. 

“Nah, I take the bus.” 

“Which line?” 

“403, why?” 

“That stops right down here, I’ll wait with you if you want,” Frank offers. 

“Yeah, sure - thanks,” Gerard says. 

They walk down the street toward the bus stop, and Frank takes a pack of smokes out of his pocket. 

“You mind if I smoke?” He asks Gerard. 

“Only if you don’t share,” Gerard tells him. Frank smiles and points the pack at him. Gerard takes one, and waits for Frank to hand him the lighter. 

They drift back into their conversation from earlier about comics, and end up debating whether or not Lord of the Rings would adapt well into artform. Frank thinks it would, but Gerard isn’t so sure. 

Gerard doesn’t know what time it is, has no idea when the next bus is coming, but realizes he doesn’t quite care. He’s content to stand and smoke and talk with Frank for a while, even if it is kind of cold out. 

They fall into a lull in the conversation, and something in Gerard’s brain urges him to continue what he was saying earlier, before the almost-fight in the bar. 

“I meant what I said, you know,” Gerard says around an exhale. “If you like cooking enough that you wanna do it professionally, you should think about going to school.” 

Frank looks over at him. 

“You’re just trying to get rid of me so I don’t come into the store anymore,” he says. 

“Nah,” Gerard says, smiling. “No I’m not.”   
  
Frank looks surprised, maybe even delighted, and like he’s going to say something else - but the bus rounds the corner, and pulls into the stop. Gerard looks up at it. 

“This is me,” he says. He thinks he might sound sad about it. He doesn’t think that’s wrong. “Thanks for waiting with me.” 

“Thanks for coming out,” Frank says. 

Gerard smiles at him, and puts his cigarette out. 

“I’ll see you Monday, Frank,” he says, and gets on the bus. 

“Bye Gerard,” he hears Frank say behind him. 

Gerard pays, sits down, and tries not to watch Frank out the window as the bus pulls away from the curb. 

He’s dead tired all of a sudden, even though it can’t be much later than 8:00. He should probably be freaking out, obsessing over whatever the fuck the last few hours was - but right now all he can think about is crawling into bed and staying there for the next fourteen hours. 

He can freak out tomorrow. Or maybe on Sunday. Just not right now. 

Right now he’s just content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! this one was a bit different and bit shorter but i had fun with it and i hope you liked it. comments and kudos are appreciated but i appreciate you anyways. see you next week :D


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gerard laughs - he’s trying for casual, but it comes out breathier than it should. 
> 
> They stare at each other, and the moment around them feels like it stretches into eternity and back. Gerard is so sure Frank’s about to say something -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .......................... uh ................ hey lol. it's been a while, hasn't it? weird how that works. 
> 
> but im here! and so is this chapter! and i pinky promise the next one will NOT take four+ months to arrive. cross my heart. 
> 
> as always, eternal shoutout to lil for hitting me over the head when im being stupid, and bcs for being eternally enthusiastic. 
> 
> also: shout out to scarlett/starstruckormetal for waiting SO patiently in this fics lobby while i sat around being stupid. your the reason this chapter happened.

**Sunday, April 27th**  
_mikey still owes u ten bucks for smokes  
do NOT let him say he already paid u back _

Gerard blinks awake.

He’s dripping sweat, tangled in his bedsheets, and achingly hard. 

“Oh, what the fuck,” he mumbles to himself. 

He wrestles with the sheets, pawing at them until he’s free of them, and then takes a moment to just breathe. He blinks a few times, trying to remember what he was dreaming about. It was him and Frank at the hardware store. They were trying to catch a giant moth, maybe? He remembers crying, and hugging Frank. And a butterfly net. 

Which is apparently enough to get him up and ready to go, when he’s asleep. He considers his options. 

He could get up, go take a cold shower, and ignore the weird dream - more specifically, not jerk off about it. He shifts, like he’s going to get up and do just that - but his boxers catch around his dick and that sends a hot spark running up his spine. 

Or - _or_ , he could jerk off, pretend it has nothing to do with the weird dream, and deal with the consequences of that later. 

He reaches down and gropes his dick through his boxers, and it seems all of him is very, very on board with the second plan. 

He finishes embarrassingly quick - all it really takes is a dozen or so good strokes and him closing his eyes, concentrating on the imagined feeling of Frank’s chest pressed against his own. It’s punch-in-the-gut good, though, and leaves him breathless and sweatier than he was when he woke up.

He stares at the ceiling, panting, and tries to put his brain back in order.

Once all systems are back online, he sits up, cracks his back, and fumbles around in his sheets until he finds his phone. It’s low on battery - he needs to charge it. But the little blue screen tells him that today is Sunday, and he groans. 

That makes sense, of course. Yesterday was Saturday. It’d been a good day. 

He had spent it decidedly not engaging with reality. He got roughly three pages of his comic inked, rewatched almost the whole first season of Buffy, and finished the day with greasy Chinese food and this book Ray lent him about the history of album cover art. 

But for every good Saturday, an unfortunate Sunday follows.

Not that Gerard has anything against Sundays in general - hasn’t, really, since he got sober. But if today is Sunday, that means tomorrow is Monday. He has work on Monday. Having work means he is going to see Frank. Which means he kind of has to figure out what the fuck happened on Friday, and how he feels about it. 

Ray and Mikey caught some concert last night, and crashed at the Way’s. Gerard can hear them shuffling around upstairs, cooking 1:00pm breakfast and having a muffled-but-animated conversation through the ceiling. 

Mikey knew something was up yesterday. He tried to coax Gerard out of the unreality dimension he safely cocooned himself in, but Gerard begged off. The problem with that, though, is Mikey knows how to be patient about Gerard’s shit, and if Gerard goes upstairs to say hi, Mikey will likely pounce - especially if he has Ray as backup. So Gerard should stay downstairs until they leave. 

There’s coffee upstairs, though. Possibly bacon, too. And definitely coffee. 

Gerard goes upstairs. 

Ray and Mikey are sitting at the kitchen table, drinking their coffee and eating breakfast in relative silence. Mikey looks a little pale, but not that much worse for wear. Ray half-heartedly twitches when Gerard closes the door to the basement, and then puts his head gently in his hands and groans. 

“Please no slamming,” Ray says. 

Gerard huffs a laugh. One of the pettier things he’s enjoyed about getting sober is the fact that he always gets to be the person amused by other people’s hangovers. 

“Sorry, Ray,” he says. Mikey is trying to suppress a laugh as well. 

“Bastards,” Ray mumbles, taking a sip of his coffee. 

Gerard grabs a cup of coffee and a plate, dishing himself some of the eggs and bacon Mikey, presumably, made. 

They eat and chat - quietly, for Ray’s sake - and eventually move back down to the basement to put on a movie. 

By the time they’ve finished The Fellowship of the Ring, Ray and Mikey are both looking much more chipper. The credits on the VHS are rolling, and Mikey does a full body stretch where he is sitting on the couch. 

“I’m gonna run to the bathroom real quick,” he says, “does anybody want another cup of coffee?” 

“Please,” Gerard says. 

“Same,” echoes Ray. 

Mikey nods, a hint of a smile playing at his mouth. “Why did I even ask? Gimme your mugs.” He gathers their mugs and makes his way up the stairs. 

Ray and Gerard sit in silence for a bit, listening to the menu screen music play, until Ray turns to look at Gerard. 

“How did your date go Friday?” He asks. Gerard groans out loud. 

“Jesus fucking Christ, I’m gonna kill Mikey,” Gerard says. Ray laughs, but his smile quickly devolves into a grimace. 

“Was it shitty?” He asks. 

Gerard flings himself back on his bed and covers his eyes with his hands. He’s being dramatic, he knows. He doesn’t care. He lets the question hang in the air for a minute.

“I don’t even know!” He says eventually. He’s practically whining. “It definitely wasn’t shitty, but like, I’m not sure it was a date. Like, I guess it had to be? But Frank didn’t call it a date, and we just like, went to a bar and left after a drink, and he walked me to the bus stop.” 

“You went to a bar?” Ray asks. His voice has a thin layer of polite indifference masking a deep, panicking concern. Ray is pretty great. Gerard sits up and looks at him. 

“You know what’s funny about that? He asked me to get drinks and I didn’t even fucking think about that until we were at the bar. It didn’t cross my mind until we were sitting there and I had to order a water. He was cool about it though.” 

Ray smiles, looking relieved. 

“Do you wanna go out with him again?” 

Gerard shrugs, and then does an abortive headshake, because the shrug isn’t honest. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Obviously. I had a nice time. It just - I don’t know, man, the whole thing caught me off guard. I don’t really know where to go from here.” 

“I mean, it’s kind of your turn to ask him out now, isn’t it?” Ray says this like that is a simple task. Like it’s microwaving popcorn, or brushing your teeth. Like the sheer idea of asking Frank out in return isn’t making Gerard break out into a cold sweat. 

The door to the basement clicks open, and they both turn their heads to see Mikey clomping down the stairs. He arrives at the landing, and looks between them. 

“Jesus, Ray, what the fuck did you say to him? He looks like he’s gonna Exorcist-style vom all over the wall.” 

Ray laughs, and Gerard just sighs. 

“I only told him it was his turn to ask Frank out now!” He sounds guilty as he says it. 

“You’re an idiot,” Mikey says to Ray. He turns to Gerard, on an afterthought. “So are you.” 

Gerard and Ray make matching sounds of protest, but Mikey ignores them - handing out the fresh mugs of coffee instead. That quiets them down, and Mikey takes back his place on the couch. 

“If you won’t ask him out,” Mikey says, putting his mug down on the table, “you should at least ask for his number.” 

“Oh, sorry,” Gerard says. “Me and my friend Ray were having a private conversation about my problems. I don’t remember inviting you into it.” 

“Don’t be such a bitch.” MIkey says with an eye roll. 

“Don’t be a busybody,” Gerard counters. 

“Who the fuck says ‘busybody’?” Ray asks. 

“Both of you get the fuck outta my basement,” Gerard says, throwing a pillow over his face like it will make them go away. 

“Fat chance,” Mikey mutters. Gerard remains behind his pillow. 

There are miscellaneous puttering sounds, and the eventual fade in of The Two Towers theme music, and once the movie starts up, Gerard assumes that it’s safe to come out from behind the pillow. Mikey glances over when Gerard moves, but just shrugs and looks back at the movie. Gerard does the same. 

At least The Lord of the Rings won’t ask Gerard any difficult questions. 

The rest of the day bleeds away, and before Gerard knows it, Ray is heading back to his apartment, and Gerard and Mikey are sitting at the dinner table, procrastinating cleaning up dinner like the dishes might grow legs and wash themselves. 

Mikey lights a cigarette like their mother didn’t spend the last fifteen minutes of dinner bitching about her boys taking up such a nasty habit. She did, however, then immediately got up to go have a cigarette herself - so really, the lecture lost its steam before it had any time to settle. Gerard gestures at Mikey, and Mikey hands him the pack. 

“Why won’t you ask for his number?” Mikey asks around an exhale. 

Gerard sighs. He supposes he has put off talking about this for as long as he can. Also, he really does need help establishing some sort of game plan here - because he’s completely lost the plot. 

“It’s like - alright so he asked me out. Kind of. I guess. But then he didn’t make a move or anything. He didn’t even try to kiss me goodnight. Or ask for my number, or say we should do this again, or any of the usual shit. We just both went home after. So I don’t know, I feel like I should _know_ he would say yes if I asked. And I don’t, after that.”

Mikey puts his cigarette down in the ashtray between them, and fixes him with a hard stare. 

“Are you being difficult on purpose?” Mikey asks. His voice is tight, like it gets when he’s legitimately pissed off. 

Gerard flinches slightly, surprised. “No?” He says. 

Mikey pinches the bridge of his nose, frowning. After a moment, he tags a swig of his drink and looks back at Gerard. 

“So Frank - who has, by your own admission, been flirting with you relentlessly for a month despite you barely reciprocating out of some weird fear that he’s making fun of you like you’re both still in high school - finally asks you out. Not only does he ask you out, but he specifically waits until neither of you are working, and you have absolutely no reason to humor him, say yes, or stick around. He waits until you have a perfect out, if you want to take it. But you don’t take it. You say yes, because you’ve been mooning over him the whole time-” 

“I haven’t been _mooning_ -” 

“Shut the fuck up, first of all. I’m trying to help you. Second of all, yes you have. Last week I walked into the kitchen while you were all lost in your sketchbook and when I tried to look, you slammed it shut so hard it flew off the table, and then muttered something about becoming a tattoo artist - like that’s a valid reason to be drawing some dudes tattoos in excruciating detail. You’ve been mooning.” 

Gerard rolls his eyes, but motions for Mikey to continue. 

“So you say yes, _because you’ve been mooning._ And then he takes you out, and you have a nice time. And I know you had a nice time, because you came home all weird and happy like you just got kissed by a cheerleader at homecoming. You were fucking humming while doing the dishes, Gerard. It was fucking disturbing.”

“So?” Gerard asks. 

“So?” Mikey yells back. Or, he doesn't yell, because Mikey never yells. But he definitely pitches his voice up, and it’s the most frustrated Gerard has seen him in a while. “So, I don’t fucking understand why you won’t accept that he likes you, and you like him, and that the regular god damn thing to do in this situation is to just ask him out. Or for his number, or whatever. Because for God knows what reason, he clearly isn’t put off by your complete inability to make a decision here, but that isn’t gonna last forever. And you’re just screwing yourself over by dragging it out. It’s infuriating.” 

Gerard takes a final drag of his cigarette and ashes it. He glares at Mikey. 

“It doesn’t even concern you, I don’t get why-” 

“I swear, if you finish that sentence with ‘I don’t get why you care’, I’ll fuckin-” Mikey starts, and then visbily deflates. He finishes his drink, pushes his seat out, and stands up. “It’s exhausting seeing you fuck yourself over like this, Gee. I thought you were past that. But - whatever. I have to go, I don’t know, do something that isn’t this. Do the dishes and I’ll owe you one.”

With that, Mikey walks out of the kitchen and leaves Gerard sitting there alone, ashtray still smoking lightly in front of him. He swears under his breath. He fucking hates making Mikey mad. 

He stands up to clear the table, and considers the fact that he’s been an even bigger idiot than he previously thought. 

-

 **Monday, April 28th**  
_work: 7am - 3pm  
apologize to mikey!!!!!!!!!  
he still owes you ten bucks tho_

Somewhere between morosely doing the dishes by himself last night, and going to bed, Gerard came to two distinct realizations. 

The first was that he’s built this whole Frank thing up in his head so much that he’s made it impossible for himself to just engage with it. So, that needs to end. Fuck being normal and regular about it, he’s just going to be, and whatever happens, happens. 

The second realization was that Mikey is right. He usually is, when it comes to Gerard, no matter how annoying that is. More specifically, Gerard has been dragging this situation out, and if he doesn’t get his shit together, all the stress he’s caused himself over it is going to have been for nothing. 

So, he needs to get a move on, sooner rather than later. 

All of that, of course, was way easier to deal with while he was mulling it over by himself, staring at the ceiling in the dark and waiting to fall asleep. 

Now, though, maneuvering through the grey morning light toward work, his third cup of coffee clutched tightly to his chest, Gerard is vibrating in his bones with anxiety about it. That’s not that unusual, though, to be fair. 

But - anxiety aside, Gerard has a plan, and it’s one he’s going to at least try to stick to. 

The first hour of work flows smoothly enough. Having the actual weekend off has left him feeling more rested than usual, and Patrick has come up to the front counter twice now to bitch about suburban mothers who expect him to be able to psychically know what paint color will best contrast their new couch. 

Brian hauls the order out of the back somewhere between Patrick’s first and second exodus, and Gerard has to take a minute to deep breathe, and remind that he’s just gonna go with the flow. That’s something he can do. 

In fact, Gerard is so perfectly capable of going with the flow that before he even realizes it, he’s spent a quarter of an hour wiping down the back counter and muttering ‘go with the flow’ to himself. 

He only snaps out of it when the familiar rumble of a truck sounds outside the shop. He chances a glance out the front window, and of course, there is Frank’s baby blue truck, idling next to the curb. 

Gerard goes back to wiping the counter with an impressive amount of force, despite the fact that it’s practically fucking glowing by now. 

Door, bell, footsteps -

“Hey Gerard,” Frank says. 

Gerard’s heart rate kicks up a notch or five. 

And a tiny voice in the back of his head tells him that if he keeps trying to convince himself he isn’t totally gone on Frank, he’ll be the dumbest man alive. He pushes that thought down - he’s trying to _engage,_ not over-think. 

Gerard breathes in through his nose, holds the air in his lungs for a few seconds, and turns around as he exhales. 

And there Frank is - looking fucking beautiful like he always is. But this time, there is a tiny chihuahua strapped to his chest, in a little, bright pink harness. 

Gerard _coos._

He rushes around the counter, and reaches a hand out to pet the dog, before he stops himself. He meets Frank’s eyes - which are practically sparkling - and smiles. 

“Can I pet her?” 

Frank nods excitedly.

“Absolutely,” he says. 

Gerard brings his hand in front of her nose, lets her smell him before he goes in for the scritches. She sniffs his hand once, twice - and then begins to slobber all over it in an approximation of what are probably kisses. 

Gerard laughs - it tickles, and looks up at Frank again. 

“What’s her name?” He asks. 

“Sweet Pea!” Frank tells him, and then frowns a little bit. “Or, technically it's Sweat Pea, but that was just an unfortunate typo.” 

Gerard swears he can feel his heart expand three sizes in his chest, Grinch style. He moves his hand from where Sweet Pea is slobbering all over it, wipes it on his shirt, and starts scritching the top of her head. She squints her little eyes as he does so, and thumps her tail happily against Frank’s chest. 

“Aren’t you a sweetheart?” Gerard says to Sweet Pea. 

“I try to be,” Frank says. 

Gerard flicks him in the chest, and then goes back to petting the dog. 

“This is between me and your dog, asshole. I’m making a friend.” 

Frank giggles - full on _giggles_ , and Gerard has to spare a glance back at Frank, because his stomach does a full on somersault at the sound. He knows he’s supposed to like, engage with whatever is going on between him and Frank today. But that was before Frank brought the world’s ugliest-and-yet-most-charming dog into work. There are more important matters at hand. Like petting Sweet Pea until Frank has to leave. And then possibly abandoning the hardware store all together so he can continue to do just that. 

“Do you want me to put her down on the counter? She loves belly rubs,” Frank asks. 

“Yes, please,” Gerard says. 

This is the best day he’s had here since he was hired. He should tell Brian they need to instill a mandatory ‘no puppy, no entry’ policy. 

They shuffle a bit - Gerard really doesn’t want to stop petting her, especially since Pea makes puppy-dog eyes at him everytime he does stop. But eventually they settle so Gerard is back behind the counter, and Frank is right up against the other side. 

Frank takes her gingerly out of the harness, and settles her down on the counter. She sniffs at the wood, circles around a few times, and then plops right down. 

Gerard thinks he might cry. Some of that is because Sweet Pea, admittedly, smells like rotten eggs. But mostly it’s from cuteness. Tiny dogs pluck at his heart strings. 

Gerard pulls up his stool, and goes back to petting her. 

“How long have you had her?” He asks Frank, looking back up at him. 

Frank looks good today. He’s wearing the same outfit he usually is when he’s on the clock - a white t-shirt and jeans, nothing special - but there’s something … extra going on today. He looks well rested, maybe. Pink in the face and happy. 

“Three years, I think?” Frank says. “It was a whole thing - I kind of just ended up with her.” 

“How do you mean?”

Frank smiles, and leans against the counter. He pets Sweet Pea’s back idly - like he’s not even aware he’s doing it. Gerard has to force himself to not stare at the distance between their hands. 

“I was volunteering at this shelter a couple years back - a buddy of mine worked there for a while, and they needed help for one of their adoption events. I had the weekend free, so I said I’d do it,” he begins. 

Gerard nods along. He’s listening - he really is. He isn’t one to ignore guys when they start telling him about volunteering with puppies. But Frank’s hair is getting longer, and there’s a singular, stray curl sticking up at his temple that Gerard wants so desperately to smooth down. He blinks the urge away and tries to pay attention. 

“The deal was basically that I got to go around to meeting rooms at the shelter, and introduce families to dogs that fit the basic description of what they were looking for, and see if they meshed with whatever dog I was handling.” Frank scrubs a hand through his hair, and smooths the curl down himself. 

Gerard smiles, and Franks cocks an eyebrow. 

“What?” He asks. 

Gerard shrugs, and says, “Do you want me to frown my way through your adorable puppy story? I guess I could do that.” He arranges his face into an exaggerated frown. 

Frank stares at him for a moment, and then a laugh bubbles up out of him. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “You’re so-” he says, and then cuts himself off. 

“ _Anyways_ , I showed this one family this black lab puppy, and they fell in love with her immediately. So I went back into the kennel area, and noticed Pea was still in her crate. I asked one of the women who worked there about her, and she told me that Pea was a million years old and very sweet and had been there for ages, but nobody had adopted her.” 

Gerard frowns for real this time. “Clearly they had no taste,” he says. He means it, too. Pea is small, lumpy, smells much less sweet than her name would imply, and has a better beard than Gerard has ever been able to grow. She also has eyes like she’s been alive since the big bang, and could tell you the story of creation over a cup of tea with a dash of whiskey. Gerard wants to draw her - probably will, later. 

Frank smiles at him, small and warm - like he’s genuinely glad Gerard feels that way. Gerard smiles back, and Frank ducks his head, and continues his story. 

“So I thought, you know, I’m pretty good at this getting-people-to-adopt-dogs thing, so I told the woman I would take Pea around and see what people thought of her. And it was fuckin _enraging_ \- I’d introduce her to families and the parents would look at me like I’d just brought them a bucket of snakes or something. God - like, I showed her to this one guy, and he looked me dead in the eyes and said ‘ew, what is that?’” 

“What the fuck?”

“Right? So I said, it’s a mirror into your soul, you shallow fucking prick - and kept moving.” 

Gerard laughs, and then when Frank doesn’t join in, he says, “Fuck, did you really?” 

“What? Say that?” Frank’s blushing a little, but he nods. “Yeah, I mean, what were they gonna do? Fire me? I was volunteering.” 

“Point.” 

“Anyhow, by the end of the day nobody had taken an interest in her - but we’d bonded, you know? She’s a special lady. I mean, look at her. So I talked to my buddy, and I took her home the next week.” 

“Wow,” Gerard says. Because .. wow. He’s already reckoned with the fact that Frank isn’t, in fact, the asshole Gerard had assumed he was in the beginning. But this really takes the cake - no, fuck it, it takes the whole god damned bakery. The whole story is tooth-rottingly sweet, and Gerard wants to say as much - but Frank must take his wow in a different way. He shifts his weight around, and rubs the back of his neck with the hand that isn’t resting on the counter. He looks around the store, out the window - anywhere that isn’t Gerard. 

“I don’t know,” he says, staring at the register. “I think it’s a nice story, but-” 

“No!” Gerard says, and grabs Frank’s hand and squeezes it. Their eyes meet. “That’s fucking precious. Seriously.” 

After a moment, Gerard’s brain catches up with him, and he realizes he’s clutching Frank’s hand. He stares at their clasped hands for a second, and bites his lip - considering. He flicks his eyes up at Frank, who’s standing stock still, staring at him - like he’s been paused by some cosmic remote. 

Gerard laughs - he’s trying for casual, but it comes out breathier than it should. He squeezes Frank’s hand one more time, and then lets it go. 

They stare at each other, and the moment around them feels like it stretches into eternity and back. Gerard is so sure Frank’s about to say something -

But then the door to the back office opens, and Brian steps out. 

“Is that a dog?” He asks. He sounds unsure. 

And the moment is broken. Of course it is. 

Frank flinches at Brian’s intrusion, like he’s been unpaused, and backs up a few feet from the counter. 

“Yeah!” He says, sunny as anything. “Do you wanna pet her?” 

Brian blinks at Frank, and then shrugs. 

“Yeah, sure.” 

Brian pets Sweet Pea in a sea of uncomfortable silence. Frank keeps looking from Brian, to Pea, to Gerard and back, and Gerard just sits there and lets his brain reel inside his skull. He’s trying to process what just happened. And he’s also failing so spectacularly he’s surprised smoke isn’t coming out of his ears. 

Brian clears his throat. 

“As … adorable as she is,” he says, “I have to be the one to break it to you both that this isn’t a doggie daycare. I know Gerard has a job he should be doing, and I think you probably do too, Frank.” 

“But Pea isn’t on the clock,” Gerard says, just to piss Brian off. 

“She will be soon if she keeps hanging around here and not putting any work in.” 

“Ooh! We can replace Bert with her.” 

“Honestly, that is not the worst idea you’ve had,” Brian tells Gerard. “But seriously, wrap it up - I need Gerard to do inventory.” 

Gerard groans, and Frank nods, and Brian heads back into the office - leaving his door just barely ajar. 

“So, uh,” Frank says. He’s laughing a little, like he’s nervous. “Um, do you guys have the order for today?” 

“Oh shit, yeah!” Gerard says. He completely forgot that Frank is technically here to do the pick up. 

Gerard moves through the motions of scanning out the pick up, while Frank situates Pea back into her doggie harness. Her hot pink doggie harness. God, there is so much about Frank that makes him want to-

Frank slaps a hand down on the box, and then picks it up. 

“I’ll see you soon?” He asks. 

Gerard smiles. “Yeah. Have a good one, Frank.” 

“You too.” 

Frank, Sweet Pea, and the order trail out the front door, leaving bells in their wake. 

Gerard is so totally, completely fucked. 

**Wednesday, April 30th**  
_work: 7am - 2pm 7am - close (BERT OWES YOU!!!!!)  
ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh_

It is noon and Gerard is more certain than ever that the universe is out to get him. 

Bert called him up last night and begged Gerard to cover his afternoon shift today. Usually, Gerard would have laughed at him and hung up, but Bert had pleaded his case between rounds of muffled puking and maybe a little bit of crying. 

Food poisoning. 

Gerard has told him a _million_ times to stop getting raw sushi from 7/11. He doesn’t know why Bert thinks he can play with fire like that. 

Unfortunately, Gerard isn’t that much of an asshole, so of course he told Bert that he’d cover for him. 

So he came in for open, told Brian that he would be staying for Bert’s shift too - and Brian’s face had lit up in the most menacing way possible. 

It’s inventory season. Officially, now. It has something to do with suppliers and contracts and best-by dates - even though Gerard doesn’t understand how anything sold in a hardware store besides the front counter candy can have a best-by date - but what it really means is that from now until seemingly the end of time, it’s Gerard’s job to not only hold down the register, but catalogue every single item in the entire fucking store. 

Gerard really hates inventory. 

But after five tedious fucking hours of counting nails and pipes and lawnmower parts and everything in between - it’s finally time for his lunch, so Gerard is going to sit the fuck down, eat a bag of chips, and draw for the full hour that is provided to him by law. 

He’s fifteen minutes deep in his sketchbook and wishing for a diet soda to go with his chips when the front door chimes open. He’s been drawing Sweet Pea a lot since Monday, but he wishes he’d asked Frank for a picture of her. He can’t seem to get the eyes just right. 

“Hey,” a voice says. Gerard whips his head up, and wonders absently if he just summoned Frank with the power of his mind. He pictures Frank taking his shirt off right here in the middle of the store to check, but no dice. 

“Oh!” Gerard says. “Hey. We don’t have an order for you today.” 

“No, I know. I just came to leave this here for Hayley,” he says, and hands Gerard a sweatshirt he didn’t realize Frank was holding until now. 

Jealousy shoots through him like a lightning strike - why does Frank have Hayley’s hoodie? But his logical thinking kicks in after a second and he realizes how stupid he’s being. He has no reason to be jealous of Hayley. Well - at least not where Frank is concerned. He’ll always be a little jealous of her ability to retain knowledge about The Walking Dead. It surpasses even Gerard’s near-encyclopedic knowledge of The Lord of the Rings. He has no idea how she does it. 

He takes the hoodie from Frank and refocuses himself. 

Gerard hesitates, torn between asking Frank how he knows Hayley and wanting to figure it out for himself. It’s been driving him nuts. Last week, she told him they met while backpacking across Europe and realized they were platonic twin flames, and swore to always keep in touch. 

That one had been a bit of a reach. 

He decides against it. Getting it out of Hayley himself will be way more satisfying. Also, he’s vaguely aware that she won’t ‘fess up just because she wants to give Gerard a reason to talk to Frank, and he refuses to engage with her meddling out of pure spite. 

“Sick, okay,” Gerard says. “She’ll be in later, I’ll give it to her then.” 

Frank smiles and nods, already turning slightly on his heel like he’s about to leave - that is, until he looks down and seems to get stuck on Gerard’s sketchbook. 

He steps closer to the counter, and inhales. It’s too light to be a gasp, but the intent is there. His hands hover, like he wants to reach for the sketchbook but knows he shouldn’t. 

“Is that Pea?” He asks. He sounds fucking thrilled. 

“I, uh-” Gerard swats away the desire to downplay it, to distract Frank away from them. He has a fucking BFA - he knows how to handle people looking at his art, for Christ’s sake. “Yeah. I’ve been drawing her a lot. I don’t know if I’m getting the eyes quite right though.” 

“No, you are. Shit, Gerard, these are amazing. I know you said you went to school for art but - god damn.” 

Gerard can feel his face heating up. He shrugs.

“Thank you,” he says, and means it. Even if he is a little embarrassed. “Realism isn’t really my thing, but-”

“What is your thing?” 

“Oh, uh - cartooning. That’s what I got my degree in. But comics, more specifically. I usually draw harsher than this. Darker lines, all that shit.” He rushes through the end of his sentence. He doesn’t know why he’s telling Frank that. 

“Will you show me?” Frank asks. It sounds like he’s daring to be hopeful. His eyebrows are pinched together - preparing to be told to fuck off. 

It makes Gerard’s stomach twist. Suddenly, he feels guilty about being so mean to Frank in the beginning. But - no, that’s foolish. It’s not like he didn’t have reason to. Their dynamic has changed, and that’s okay. He just has to learn to move with the changes. 

Gerard smiles at Frank, and Frank visibly relaxes. Gerard wants to say _of course I will. I was never really gonna say no._ He settles for “Yeah, sure.” 

He flips toward the back of the sketchbook. He keeps his planned drawings and his spur of the moment sketches separated - an old habit carried over from high school. There’d been an unfortunate moment where he’d been trying to show his art teacher his plan for a project they were doing in class, and instead opened to a page full of over-the-top blood and guts. 

That had been an awkward after-school meeting with the guidance counselor. 

As Gerard flips through his drawings and explains them to Frank, he becomes distantly aware that Frank is joining the very short list of people who have seen the plans for his comic. He thinks that probably means something, and plans to expand on that thought - but then Frank points to a thumbnail sketch he did for a poster, and he forgets to care. 

Halfway through an explanation of some of the powers he’s thinking of giving to one of the characters, he glances at the time display on the computer screen, and realizes his lunch is practically over. How they managed to lose forty-five minutes in Gerard’s sketchbook, he has no fucking idea. 

“Oh shit,” he says, totally cutting himself off. 

“What?” Frank asks, glancing around like maybe an armed robber just strolled into the store. 

“No, nothing - I just, my lunch is almost over. That went by quick.” 

“Oh,” Frank frowns. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize-” he sounds distraught that he might have monopolized Gerard’s break. He’s frowning, and pulling at the sleeves of his hoodie like he doesn’t know if he should stay and apologize some more or just leave. 

“Frankie, it’s fine.” 

Frank perks up at the nickname, but still glances back at the door. 

“I oughta go anyhow. Um, I gave you Hayley’s hoodie, right?” 

“Yeah, you did.” 

“Ok, good. Sorry again-” 

“Don’t apologize,” Gerard says - his voice level, serious. He doesn’t want Frank to feel bad for hanging around. He enjoyed it. “Seriously, I had a nice time talking to you.” 

Frank smiles - uncertain at first, and then big and beautiful. Gerard’s heart does a dance in his chest. 

“Good. Me too,” Frank says. “I’ll see you around?” 

“Yeah, I’ll see you.” 

Frank exits the store, and Gerard cleans up his lunch and mentally prepares himself to go back to endless counting. At least he’ll be able to brood properly while he takes inventory.

-

Gerard has come to three realizations. 

One: the next time Bert asks him to work a double, Gerard is going to laugh in his face and then say no. He doesn’t care if Bert needs his shift covered because he’s bleeding from his god damned eyes. Gerard wasn’t built to work for thirteen hours straight. He hasn’t been this tired since his thesis week senior year of college. He needs to lay down like, immediately. 

Two: if he wakes up tomorrow morning with superpowers, the first thing Gerard is going to do is eliminate all hardware stores and related items from existence. This is a good gig, sure. He gets paid well, Brian is a nice manager, and he likes all his coworkers. Plus there’s walk-in eye-candy in the form of- no, that’s not the point. Gerard has been counting lug nuts and wrenches and door handles and a billion other things all day. His brain has turned to pure mush. He doesn’t think he’ll ever recover. So clearly, hardware stores have to be eliminated. Sorry Brian. 

Third: this thing between Frank and him is changing. It’s been in flux since the beginning. He’s been looking at it like something concrete, but that’s never been true. The only stagnant part of their - association? Friendship? Flirtationship or whatever the fuck the kids are calling it these days? Whatever - the only stagnant part of _them_ was the first week or two, when Frank was still going at him all hot and heavy - busting out the bad porn dialogue whenever he came in. But that’s long over. Or, it’s mostly over. Frank still loves to play the sleazeball every once in a while. But they’ve developed past that. What scares him about this realization is that Gerard wants to _continue_ developing their … them. 

No, okay. He wants to develop their would-be relationship. There, he said it. If he can’t say it to himself, he has no hope of developing it, does he? 

There are a million little related anxieties Gerard could pick apart about this realization. What-ifs and should-do’s all tumbling around in the Frank-drawer in his mind. But he shuts the drawer tightly. He’s tired, and he thinks three realizations is enough for one day. He wants to go home. 

Brian left, as he tends to do, about a half an hour before close - after he finished cashing Hayley out. 

Hayley came in a couple minutes after Gerard finished his lunch. He’d handed her the hoodie, told her Frank dropped it off, and then asked her where she’d left it. 

She accidentally almost told him the truth, Gerard is sure of it. 

She’d only been half paying attention to Gerard’s question, and had said “Oh, I left it at the d-” and then paused for a comically long amount of time. “The dungeon. Me and Frank go to the same BDSM dungeon. You should check it out.” 

Gerard doesn’t buy that answer either, but- he shakes his head. This isn’t the time to picture Frank in various creative-and-compromising positions. It’s time to shut down the registers, turn off the lights, lock the door, and leave. Thank god. 

And so he does. 

He steps outside. There’s a chill to the wind. It hasn’t gotten warm enough for the heat to stick around after the sun goes down. He digs around his backpack, and is horrified to find he’s out of cigarettes. That’s what he gets for letting Brian raid his pack, he supposes. 

He closes his eyes and leans against the front window of the store. He breathes in deep - like the smog and distinctly Jersey smell will do anything to cure his nicotine headache. 

“Gerard?” 

Gerard blinks open his eyes. 

Frank is standing there, hands in his pockets, looking caught somewhere between pleased and confused to find Gerard loitering outside the store. 

“Oh, Frank - hi! We’re closed already, sorry if-” 

Frank shakes his head, laughing. 

“Nah, I know when you guys close. I just got off work. I was heading back to my truck. I usually park up here. She gets filthy if I park her on the site lot.” 

Gerard smiles, despite himself. Frank’s affinity for his truck is cute, even if Gerard doesn’t understand it. 

“What are you still doing here, though?” Frank asks. “Didn’t you work in the morning?” He glances upward as he says it, like he’s making sure it’s actually nighttime. 

Gerard groans, and rolls his eyes. “Ugh, yeah. I covered Bert’s shift, he got food poisoning.” Frank grimaces. Gerard has to agree. 

“That fucking sucks. Doubles are hell.” He pauses, and hesitates. Then he says,”You take the bus, right? You want me to walk you to your stop?” 

Gerard’s stomach does a flip, and his brain joins in on the fun by flashing him back to last week when Frank walked him to the bus after they- after they went out, he supposes.

“If you share your cigs with me again, then yeah,” Gerard says. 

Frank giggles, and digs out his pack and a lighter. 

Gerard lights his cigarette, and Frank launches into a story about these guys he works with. 

One of them - Dylan - has been using up a lot of his sick days lately. The site manager thought it was suspicious- “Mostly because Mike’s a fuckin freak, lemme tell you,” Frank adds. But Dylan always has a doctors note, and worked hard when he did show up, so Mike-The-Site-Manager couldn’t do anything about it. Or well, he couldn’t do anything about it until today. 

“So I’m in the trailer with Mike, trying to coordinate some time off, right? I’ve been chasing him down for the last two weeks trying to schedule this, and I finally got him today. But his phone starts ringing. And Mike’s a dick, so he cuts me off and tells me to wait, and picks up the phone. He’s quiet for a minute or two, and then he turns redder than I have ever seen another human being turn. He hangs up the phone and shoots out of the fuckin trailer - doesn’t say jack shit to me, just leaves.” 

“Did you follow him?” Gerard asks. 

“Nah, fuck that. He had to come back to the trailer eventually, and I wasn’t gonna leave and have him put me off again. But after a while I hear yelling start up outside. And like, it’s a construction site, there’s always yelling. But this was different. So I go out, and there’s Mike and Dylan - and they’re fucking brawling outside the trailer.” 

“No _shit_.” 

“ _Yes_ shit.” Frank says. Gerard laughs, and Frank gets this pleased little smile on his face, and then continues. “It was insane. They’re both pretty big dudes, and they were going at it. So me and a couple other guys break it up. Dylan’s nose was bleeding pretty bad, and Mike managed to dislocate his fuckin’ shoulder somehow. Somebody gets the medic, cools them both down, and asks Mike what happened.” 

They’re at the bus stop now, and Gerard’s done with his cigarette. He stubs it out on the trashcan and throws it away, and then looks guiltily at Frank. 

“You’re a fuckin mooch, aren’t you?” Frank says, laughing. Gerard shrugs. 

“Maybe. Am I mooch you’re gonna give your cigarettes too?” 

Frank fixes him with a stare. If looks could kill- well, no, that’s not quite right. Murder isn’t what Frank is trying to express here. Far from it. 

Gerard blinks, and the mood shifts into something small and soft between them. 

Frank offers Gerard the pack wordlessly, and Gerard takes a cigarette, puts it in his mouth. He pats his pockets, and realizes he borrowed Frank’s lighter for the first one. Frank must know what Gerard’s looking for, because he takes his lighter out of his pocket, and steps closer - lights Gerard’s cigarette for him. They hold eye contact, looking through the flame, until Gerard exhales smoke and Frank steps back. 

There are tiny bright spots dancing in Gerard’s eyes, and his heart is pounding in his chest. 

Frank clears his throat. “So, uh - it turned out the call was a buddy of Mike’s who runs a site down in Newark. Mike’s been suspicious that Dylan’s moonlighting at other sites-”

“Moonlighting?” 

“Oh, just like, working two contracts at once, basically. Which is a big no-no for a bunch of reasons - like union dues and safety regs, but the only one Mike’s actually concerned with is money. So Mike’s been calling around asking if any of them know Dylan, and I guess when I was in his office he got the call back confirming it.” 

“And he got mad enough he fuckin fought him?” 

Frank shrugs. “Construction dudes are a different breed. Plus, Mike’s a fuckin miser. Dude makes Scrooge look generous.” 

“McDuck, or of the Dickens variety?” Gerard asks. Frank laughs - loud. 

“I meant Dickens, but fuck it, let’s go with McDuck.” 

The bus pulls into its stop just then, and Gerard quickly ashes his cigarette. He has the urge to hug Frank, or do something even stupider - but he pushes it down. 

“Thanks for walking me,” he says. 

Frank shrugs. “Anytime.” 

Gerard thinks Frank might mean that. 

**Wednesday, May 7th**  
_work: 7am - 3pm  
help mikey put in the air conditioners when you get home_

Gerard doesn’t know how he is all of 27 years old, and he still hasn’t mastered getting to bed on time. He tries to be good about it, he really does. And when he knows what day it is, he fares pretty well. But he did not know what day yesterday was, and fell asleep on the wrong side of four in the morning, thinking he had today off. So when Mikey came down stairs at 6:40 this morning and asked Gerard why he hadn’t left for work, Gerard had been exhausted and so fucking confused. 

And now, an hour later, Gerard is sitting behind the counter at work, this close to taping his eyelids open in an effort to stay awake. Frank came in right at open and bought … something or other. Gerard didn’t really pay attention. But he seemed to get that Gerard was not one with the waking world this morning, because he just said a polite hello and goodbye, and then made himself scarce - instead of inventing a reason to stick around like he usually does. These days, Gerard enjoys that Frank hangs around work - but today, he’s grateful Frank was in and out quickly. He doesn’t have the brain power to not say something monumentally embarrassing right now. 

Just when Gerard is thinking about all the stupid things he could say to Frank, Frank walks into the store. Gerard rubs at his eyes - making sure it is in fact Frank, and that he hasn’t fallen asleep at the register. 

Frank’s smiling like he has a secret, and walks right up to where Gerard is sitting. 

“Hey,” Gerard says, suppressing a yawn. “Did you forget something?” 

“Nah, not exactly” Frank says, and hands him a coffee. 

Oh. Frank bought him a coffee. He doesn’t know how he missed that. Did he ask Frank to buy him a coffee?

“You looked like you needed it,” Frank explains. Gerard nods dumbly, and takes a gulp. It burns the inside of his mouth. He so totally does not care. 

Gerard takes another gulp, and tries to get his brain to boot up. “Um,” he says. “Did you want me to-” but Frank shakes his head. 

“Absolutely not. It’s on the house.” He’s already making for the door. “I gotta run, I’m late to work. Try not to fall asleep, yeah?” 

“Um, okay - thank you!” Gerard gets out, just as Frank leaves. He hopes he heard him. He pinches his arm absently. “Ow.” Okay, so he’s definitely awake. Or he will be, once he finishes this coffee. The coffee that Frank bought him. Frank bought him coffee. Wow. 

It’s somewhere around the last sip of coffee, an hour or so later, that Gerard finally processes what just happened. With startling clarity - especially considering how tired he still is - he thinks, _wow. I’m gonna have to ask Frank out, aren’t I?_ And after allowing himself a single moment of white-hot panic, he realizes how badly he wants to. 

They’ve been going back and forth for over a month now. And the thing is, Gerard likes Frank - would be stupid not to. And after all the evidence that’s piled up, not even the self deprecating, anxious gremlin in his brain can convince Gerard that Frank doesn’t feel the same way. It’s his turn to make a move. And he’s actually ready to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: it has come to my attention some of you havent read franks blog post about adopting sweet pea and i really think everybody needs the wholesomeness of this post once in their life.   
> https://frank-ierowebsite.tumblr.com/post/90631080329/lets-take-a-closer-look-shall-we  
> here you go :D see you soon!


End file.
